4574642

Whatever the rankings are supposed to be, they're not supposed to be a participation award.

Aren't they already? With a few exceptions, you get points just for showing up. You lose points for not participating.

4574785

I guess:

I misunderstood the system, then. I thought everyone lost 10% of their score each time whether they entered a story or not.

Mike

4574785
4575065
You lose 10% of your points every round no matter whether you participate or not.

Participation merely gives you the chance to win points.

4575065
4575202
Well, I guess you're right. Kinda depends on how you look at "gaining" points, since everybody loses different amounts, and have different thresholds to break even.

I'm comparing it to many Elo-styled systems in games I play, where rating never deteriorates over time, only with losses. If someone's scared of sliding downwards, they can just stop, and keep their current rating for bragging rights or whatever. The scoreboard here seem like a "participation award" by comparison (whether it's a carrot or a stick)

4574487

Because I've apparently caused several problems, I suppose I'll toughen up and try to make another response.

This is not at all the opinion I tried to describe in my posts. I'm not envious of superior writers, I don't think I even compare, I don't have a problem with accepting my faults, so for heaven's sake, please stop saying that. The point I was trying to make was that it's difficult for me personally, as well as at least a few other newcomers I've spoken with, to integrate into the competitive atmosphere here. I was under the assumption that this group was meant to help novices, but in the few rounds I've participated in, the whole event had a very different feel. Present Perfect asked earlier in the thread for the opinions of people who felt pushed away by the scoreboard, so I figured I'd give my two cents.

I apologize for withdrawing my comments shortly after posting them, but after seeing the responses they evoked, I lost any will to voice my opinion. I doubt anyone in here is intentionally malicious, but it was nothing short of painful to see my words being twisted and all of a sudden being spoken to like a selfish child when I just wanted to give some feedback. I'm sorry for having an opinion contradictory to commonly accepted ideas here. I still don't know why I bothered to make any posts.

I'm sorry for making yet another post oriented on myself rather than the discussion, but I just wanted to explain myself and clarify some things that apparently have confused some other posters.

4575272

I'm comparing it to many Elo-styled systems in games I play, where rating never deteriorates over time, only with losses. If someone's scared of sliding downwards, they can just stop, and keep their current rating for bragging rights or whatever. The scoreboard here seem like a "participation award" by comparison (whether it's a carrot or a stick)

Over time, your score on the scoreboard will converge to 10 times your average score each round. Any round you don't participate in is effectively a 0. Someone who participates every round will eventually end up with a score 10 times their average round score.

So someone who participates infrequently will probably end up below someone who does okay consistently, but someone who does well consistently will end up at the top of the board over time.

It is something of a measure of consistency.

4575310

I wouldn't worry about it. If you enjoy writing, you'll probably enjoy the Writeoff. If you want to get better at writing, then the Writeoff is, hands-down, one of the absolute best tools for doing so.

Yes, it requires you to compete. But competition, along with study and practice, are excellent ways to improve your skills.

As for the scoreboard, who cares? All that really matters is how well you do in this round, and honestly, showing up to fight is half the battle.

4575310 It surely wasn't helpful for me to form an opinion on your post when all I had was an echo. I did not intentionally twist any of your words, just felt like commenting on the mindset I perceived behind the things people seemed to comment on.

Tell me please, because I want to understand: What about this environment here is competititve beyond the point you could just say "I don't care"? It's not like you get blocked from the next event if you finish last, and all the reviews I've read the last three competitions were super polite. This competition can be used as a tool for novice writers, just take what you need and ignore what you don't.

I'm sorry my comment from before might have seemed callous, but I really have a hard time getting you. You have an opinion, you voice it, you withdraw it. You still care what people add to a discussion you've already opted out, then you bring forth comments like:

I'm sorry for having an opinion contradictory to commonly accepted ideas here.

... in response to a post where I basically said your problem was that you care more about other people's opinions than your own. A post where you somehow read into that I claimed you were jealous of other writers, which was never on my mind at all.

[...] after seeing the responses they evoked, I lost any will to voice my opinion.

See, that's the problem. Me, I don't voice opinions because I want some kind of response, I voice opinions because I think they matter. If not to someone else, then at least to me. If someone who I think is worth it doesn't get me right, I clarify. If I don't care about the person not getting me, I don't, but I sure as hell don't suffer in silence. Reserve fucks-given for things that matter, it makes life so much easier.

4575310
From the front page of the group:

The Write-off is a timed challenge in which writers create stories to a given prompt. The works are then released anonymously for all to see, followed by judging rounds to allow readers to determine the winners. The event is concluded with the results posted and the authors revealed.

We welcome all authors and readers, whether new or experienced. We want to make this into a community event inclusive of all of Fimfiction, so come one, and come all to the Writeoff Association!

It is a very good place to grow as a writer because of a few factors:

Regular competition.

Quality feedback.

Incentive to write.

The purpose of local video game tournaments isn't actually to help you become better at a video game, but it happens that if you compete regularly at such tournaments, you'll probably get better at the game over time as you play against people, learn from them, make connections with better players, see what others do, ect.

The writeoff is even better as there is a culture of giving feedback on writing here, which is helpful for all writers - and many newbies struggle to get useful feedback at all.

Thus it can be a very good place to grow as a novice writer, but I wouldn't really say that the "purpose" of the group is to help such folks. That doesn't mean that newbie writers don't get helped, though.

4575310
I'm going to chime in saying I come for the competition aspect second, and the 'Get better / actually participate' aspect first. There's plenty of other writing competitions on fimfic and I don't do any of those, because they lack the workshop quality which is what is valuable here.

Who wins/loses is interesting, yes, and I enjoy striving to win, yes, but if we completely did away with story rankings entirely and it was just a solid week of reviewing/etc, I'd be entirely fine with that. Really, the one thing I find the competitive framework good for is that it's a way to gauge how people felt in a somewhat concrete manner; in that regard, ranking is yet another form of useful feedback, but...

Yea, I don't like the 'Competition is the entire heart of the Writeoff' belief set, and it's one I don't subscribe to myself. So, stick around, I hope!

4575822

I deleted my posts with the hope that people would stop responding to them. I'm not here to argue who's opinion is 'better' or any nonsense like that, the entire time I just wanted to provide a little feedback someone was asking for.

The entire nature of the writeoff appears competitive in my standpoint. If it wasn't, why would it have medals and scores and ranks? Perhaps our definitions of 'competitive' differ. I don't mean to imply it's necessarily a bad thing and breeds animosity between losers and winners or something. But to say that there isn't competition in the writeoff is rather naive.

My issue with the competitive nature of it comes with the conflict between the writeoff being a group to help new writers and being a group to discuss and rank the best stories posted. The mediocre stories are weeded out so-to-speak in the prelim voting, and the remaining stories are the ones that get discussed in depth and voted on. Whatever criticism new writers get is quickly left behind once the contenders for the top places are discovered and it becomes a scramble to decide who deserves what position on the scoreboard.

This is all my opinion since I joined the writeoffs months ago, but this search for the best is the bigger half of the writeoff in my experience. There is a wonderful period of time in which all stories get read and reviewed, but I'm certain that more than a few people here are more interested in the final results. I myself may simply be disillusioned after being invited to the group as a means to improve my own writing, only to find myself pitted against the best other stories. The best part of this so far has been the inevitable reviews for my writing, where I'd be lucky to get a view a week if I had no established audience. However, I still feel strongly that there's difficulty in having both complete rookies get help and having long-time authors get reviewed as well. The scope of the whole writeoff seems to be too large to effectively cater to both writing assistance and the competitive aspect of it. It does the best job it can do, and I'm extremely grateful for that, but I'm just trying to be honest.

Again, I'm really sorry for saying all this. It looks like a very self-centered point of view, but I'm simply trying to give my opinion as someone who is constantly afraid of being a part of the writeoff because it was asked earlier.

4575980

I still feel strongly that there's difficulty in having both complete rookies get help and having long-time authors get reviewed as well. The scope of the whole writeoff seems to be too large to effectively cater to both writing assistance and the competitive aspect of it.

So, the main reason you're against the competitivity is that you don't feel as though the workshop aspect is pronounced enough, not that you're actually afraid of placing bad in the competition? What exactly is it lacking in your opinion? I do see that last round was especially tough because of the shorter prelim time, but the rounds before did a pretty good job in giving reviews to each and every story in my opinion. This month's round is gonna have longer prelims again.

4575980

My issue with the competitive nature of it comes with the conflict between the writeoff being a group to help new writers and being a group to discuss and rank the best stories posted. The mediocre stories are weeded out so-to-speak in the prelim voting, and the remaining stories are the ones that get discussed in depth and voted on. Whatever criticism new writers get is quickly left behind once the contenders for the top places are discovered and it becomes a scramble to decide who deserves what position on the scoreboard.

I'm just chiming in to agree with this observation. I think this was discussed before (in other threads somewhere), and most people who have participated in the writeoff for a while agree that the writeoff is a competition first, and the workshop element is sort of a bonus.

Me, I'm a newbie and I come here for the workshopping, as it's a really great opportunity to get feedback. I don't really care about the scoreboard (or winning, really). I do think it's interesting to see how I stack up against other people, but I basically ignore the competition aspect otherwise. I focus on reading feedback (and giving feedback, since I feel that there are other people that value the workshopping element as much as I).

The scoreboard is a non-issue for me. I know I'm not a great writer. That's not meant to be self-deprecating--I recognize that I have some talent, just not a lot. There's some fun in hoping that maybe I'll win this time, but it's not a big deal if I don't.

I don't speak for everyone, or even all new people. Just my two cents.

Edit: Just realized that 4575923 said pretty much what I just said. I should've just said I agree with him/her. Bad Front. Bad. Read, don't skim. xP

4576330

I suppose you're right. I've received a sizeable handful of contradicting opinions on the "purpose" of the writeoff, but in the end I'm not sure how much it matters as long as everyone's treated politely and fairly. I don't have a problem with competition, it's just that it can sometimes appear unwelcoming (at least for me).

4575408

Over time, your score on the scoreboard will converge to 10 times your average score each round. Any round you don't participate in is effectively a 0. Someone who participates every round will eventually end up with a score 10 times their average round score.

Well, except that you get a lot of points with multiple entries. The average story doesn't get a score of zero. (I think it should, to prevent incentivizing submitting lots of stories.) You have to score very low indeed to lose points from an entry. "Anonymous Dreams" was in the bottom third last time, and I still got 134 points for that.

4579567
It is literally impossible to lose points unless you submit more than one story. The bottom possible score for participating in a round is 0.

The only way you can lose points is if you submit more than one story, AND that your secondary stories are so bad that they actually give you a larger negative point value than you got in terms of positive points from your best story.

4579691 Sorry; what you wrote is correct. I should not have phrased that as if I were disagreeing. I probably was thinking "average story score".

4580055
Oh! I see what you were saying. You were suggesting that the mark for "losing points for multiple entries" be moved up from where it is right now so that if your story is below the overall average for that round, you would lose points for it, so as to give a stronger disincentive for submitting multiple weak stories.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad idea, though I'm not sure if it would actually have a tremendous impact on user behavior. Right now, even getting dead last with a secondary story gives you only like -51 points in a minific round.

In the latest event (Best Laid Plans), the gold medal was worth 260 points. Going into the event, horizon had a cumulative score of 3218, I had 2819, Titanium Dragon had 2710, and sharpspark had 2721. That means that none of us could so much as break even unless we wrote more than one story. This is insane.

I remember being exasperated with one of the first events after score depreciation became A Thing that I had to place at least 6th just to break even. Having it be impossible is ridiculous.

Whee! Hopefully this isn't necromancy...!

i'll be honest, i didn't read the entire thread. Mostly i just wanted to add another data point (about me, at that, ha ha...).

Georg explained the purpose of the scoreboard and how he understood it to work when he snookered me into joining this little shindig. All i really got out of that, though, was "don't pay any attention to the scoreboard or you'll just feel like you'll never catch up" despite understanding that it was structured so that in theory, anyone could. Mostly it reminds me of WoW's old PVP ranking system, where you had point-decay from week to week and you could only be on top for very long if you played all the time. i had to do the same thing there: ignore the rankings and do what i do instead. i love PVP, but i was already an adult in the working world long before that game came out, and i didn't have anywhere near the time necessary to get on the boards anywhere. Here, at least, that isn't a problem, which is kind of nice, but i still basically ignore the scoreboard. i mean, i'm in 233rd place with 7 points, so i know that there's no point in ever looking at it. It doesn't tell me anything useful, and it's unlikely it ever will.

You know, unless my "give everyone ergot so i can win something" plan actually comes together....

4608588
Well, you have historically entered multiple stories a number of times. It isn't terribly surprising that if your average score is above what is possible with a single story due to lots of multiple submissions, that when you've been at it for a long time your score will end up at that point. The system is designed to have our ultimate score approach 10x our average score asymptotically over time.

4657128
That's beside the point. If the goal is to have a score based on your long-term average, why not just post the average in the scoreboard? The fact that the scoreboard essentially forces you to match your historical performance or suffer a loss is just another example of the mentality that you're expected to repeat your prior achievement level or be considered a disappointment (see the lots of comments in the last ten or so events that amounted to "I'm surprised so many big names finished so low" or "OMG I can't believe I beat this guy!"). That's part of what drove Present Perfect away, and it's part of what will likely make the next minific round my last.

People who have earned a high lifetime score are going to be reluctant to give it up. People who are new will want a quick way to ascend to their level. You're never going to satisfy both, which is why I've advocated scrapping the scoreboard altogether for some time now. I don't enjoy coming into a competition seeing the deck stacked against me from the start, where it's not that I earn points no matter what I do, but that I have to earn some threshold amount just to stay afloat.

4657256

If the goal is to have a score based on your long-term average, why not just post the average in the scoreboard?

The current system means you always gain more points by competing than not competing. That system would have the opposite effect if you did better than your average - it would discourage you from competing because you'd probably lose points. Loss aversion is a real thing; in the present scoreboard, loss aversion always aligns with competing, which is good, because you want the scoreboard to encourage people to compete.

You want your scoreboard to encourage people to do what you want them to do.

It also has the advantage of making it so that if someone stops competing, they don't stay at the top of the scoreboard forever in favor of people who are actually still in the competition.

The fact that the scoreboard essentially forces you to match your historical performance or suffer a loss is just another example of the mentality that you're expected to repeat your prior achievement level or be considered a disappointment (see the lots of comments in the last ten or so events that amounted to "I'm surprised so many big names finished so low" or "OMG I can't believe I beat this guy!").

Any competition is always going to have people glad that they beat someone who they think of as a big name, or people surprised that a "big name" doesn't do well.

That's how it goes. And THAT doesn't have anything to do with the scoreboard, it has to do with rankings in any individual round.

"I beat X" is a good feeling when you think of X as a good writer, because it means you finished ahead of someone you respect. I know I was pretty excited in my first round when I finished ahead of a bunch of people I thought of as very good writers.

People who have earned a high lifetime score are going to be reluctant to give it up. People who are new will want a quick way to ascend to their level.

The system as-is allows you to rise up pretty quickly; you attain over half of your eventual maximum score after 7 competitions, and 75% after 13. That's not too bad. A lot of people towards the top haven't been competing for any longer than I have.

I don't enjoy coming into a competition seeing the deck stacked against me from the start, where it's not that I earn points no matter what I do, but that I have to earn some threshold amount just to stay afloat.

You have the second largest advantage of anyone. You're going to start next round with 2711 points, and have your short story score added onto that. The deck is heavily stacked in your favor, not against you.

4657317

The current system means you always gain more points by competing than not competing.

So has every single scoring system we've ever used. That's not a point in this system's favor, not in the least. But there's a huge difference between "I didn't participate, so I didn't get anything" and "I didn't participate, so I lose points." I would hope you'd want to participate for the fun of it, not because you're under threat if you don't, and frankly, the latter is how I've felt about the regular events for almost a year now.

It also has the advantage of making it so that if someone stops competing, they don't stay at the top of the scoreboard forever in favor of people who are actually still in the competition.

Again, every scoring system we've ever used also does this.

"I beat X" is a good feeling when you think of X as a good writer, because it means you finished ahead of someone you respect.

There's a fine line between pride and gloating, and I've seen far too much of the latter, though it has gotten better from its low point about... oh, I don't know. Four events ago, maybe.

You have the second largest advantage of anyone. You're going to start next round with 2711 points, and have your short story score added onto that. The deck is heavily stacked in your favor, not against you.

No, not really. I don't enjoy the regular events anymore, so unless the prompt really grabs me, I don't enter. So not only do i have to endure a loss of 300 points for not participating in it, essentially forcing me to take a 0 instead of an N/A in that "approaching 10x your average" asymptote, but then another 270-point loss at the next minific write-off. Now I have to accumulate nearly 600 points in a minific round to break even, which basically means claiming two medals or writing 3-4 stories that all make the finals. That's a pretty steep price of admission. I had all 3 entries finish in the finals last time and got 475 points. Therefore, I lose ground. And I'm represented as having declined relative to my peers because I didn't participate in an event. "Participate or else" is a poor way to reward people.

4657543

So has every single scoring system we've ever used.

Uh, no? The old score system neither had scores decay nor was participation guaranteed to add to your score. Half the people lost points every round. You'd lose points if you finished below the median score. There was no score decay.

There was briefly a secondary score system which only added together points from the last X many events. I don't really remember any other scoring systems between that one and this one.

But there's a huge difference between "I didn't participate, so I didn't get anything" and "I didn't participate, so I lose points." I would hope you'd want to participate for the fun of it, not because you're under threat if you don't, and frankly, the latter is how I've felt about the regular events for almost a year now.

No, not really. I don't enjoy the regular events anymore, so unless the prompt really grabs me, I don't enter.

If you're not having fun, quit playing. Why do you care if your score goes down in a competition that isn't fun for you? Why does it matter?

The scoreboard isn't magically going to make the writeoff fun for you again. It can't. That's not what it is intended to do. It is a way of keeping score which incentives participation.

Losing points because you didn't participate is a feature, not a bug. It was deliberately built into the system to encourage people to participate on a regular basis and to give us a fun thing to look at, but it can't make the writeoff fun on its own. There's no reason for the same people to stay on top forever if they stop participating.

My two cents:

Keep the scoreboard. This is after all, a competition, at least on paper. Keeping track of scores is a vital part of maintaining the whole semi-competitive vibe we've got going. Also, keep the scoreboard on a decaying system; it's not my personal favorite, but from what I've gathered in this thread and previous ones, it does seem to do the best job at motivating the majority of members to participate.

BUT:

I also propose adding another page or a tab on the scoreboard for "Legacy Points" or something along those lines. This would be an alphabetically arranged list of authors and the points they have accumulated throughout their Writeoff careers. These points would be non-decaying and non-negative. They'd be saved for what basically amounts to a historical record. The purpose of this would be to allow authors to not feel obligated to participate simply to maintain their position on the Scoreboard, since their total progress/participation is still being kept at least somewhere. Arranging this list alphabetically rather than numerically would emphasize that it is not a ranking system, but instead a record-keeping one. This would give veterans a more lasting sense of accomplishment, while still allowing relative newcomers the chance to overtake them via the official scoreboard.

4657543
First, I agree with TD on the "compete or lose points" thing being a feature, not a bug.

Look at it this way: The writeoff is set up to assume that people participating are interested in all aspects of the writeoff. So, a writeoff participant:
A) Wants to write a story
B) Wants to be judged based on that story compared to other stories in that round
C) Wants to maintain or increase their placing on the scoreboard.

Now, this assumption isn't true; for example there are many people who aren't interested in B or C. But it wouldn't make sense to keep those people in mind when adjusting things about the writeoff.

In the situation you're talking about, you want to skip A and B for the round, but you're suggesting that you're still worried about C. That's fine, just like it's fine for people to submit stories and not care how they're scored, but in that situation you are not the "writeoff participant" that the writeoff is designed for.

Now, as for having to make up a ridiculous number of points to make up for the drain, I'd like to point out that's only an issue as you get to the very top of the scoreboard. You earned those points; you're one of the best. But in the words of Terry Pratchett, "The price for being the best is always... having to be the best." If you can get up to 2000+ points, it was probably by doing some impressive things like writing medal winners or multiple finalists. If you want to stay up there, you have to keep doing them, or someone else who can do them is currently better than you. And then they'll be the one who has to keep doing them, or someone will pass them on their way down.

If no one else is doing those things, you'll eventually sink to a point where you can make up for your drain by just participating, and no one will pass you because as they get close they won't be able to make up for their drain based on their scores.

The scoreboard isn't a hall of fame (though, as 4658090 points out, we could set something like that up as well), it's a current snapshot of recent performance. If you "recently" aren't performing the way you used to, and someone else is performing the way you used to, they're going to pass you.

4657961

Losing points because you didn't participate is a feature, not a bug.

And this is where we fundamentally disagree. You're stating this as a fact. I'm saying "this is why I don't like it," and you're saying "no, you're wrong." And thus ends any productive conversation on the subject. You're literally telling me that my opinion is wrong. Bluntly: I don't think it's fair to say I've gotten worse from one event to the next just because I didn't participate. I think the only conclusion you can draw from not participating is that I'm the same. I haven't gotten any worse, but I've also foregone the opportunity to get better. Why is there a need to deduct score? I'm still losing ground anyway, sitting still while everyone who participates gains points. As it is now, a gold medal in the regular round gets 500+ points. A first-time participant who finishes last gets 0. I get -300. As far below the finalists as the last-place finisher is, I'm that far below him. Maybe it doesn't matter after everything's totaled, but the devil's in the details, and I think what the individual steps mean really does matter.

If you're not having fun, quit playing. Why do you care if your score goes down in a competition that isn't fun for you? Why does it matter?

Because I keep hoping people will see this as something other than a contest for internet points. I don't get why you're so gung-ho about the voting system being such a great topic for fine-tuning, but the scoreboard is off limits.

I don't enter because of the scoreboard. I'm saying why I think there shouldn't be a scoreboard. And I'll reiterate that if the goal of the decay is to converge on an average over time, why not just post everyone's average score over the events in which they've participated? That way, a newcomer can get right up there in a single event, and it has the "feature" you want that you have to continue being good, when you participate, to keep that score up.

How everyone's gotten so hyper-competitive about these events is one of the many reasons Present Perfect isn't going to participate anymore, and being stonewalled and having discussion shut down by a few outspoken folks is another. Suggesting I quit if I don't like it is awfully antagonistic, but rest assured, you'll get your wish soon enough.

4658889

Losing points because you didn't participate is a feature, not a bug.

And this is where we fundamentally disagree.

I can't really see how you can disagree on that. You can say it's a bad feature and should be removed, but it's not points get deduced each round from older entries by mistake.

Why is there a need to deduct score? I'm still losing ground anyway, sitting still while everyone who participates gains points.

I think the system is in place so that you don't have to participate in a ~30 writeoffs in which none of the 'old' top 10 autors participated to get a chance of kicking them off the pedestal.

Bluntly: I don't think it's fair to say I've gotten worse from one event to the next just because I didn't participate. I think the only conclusion you can draw from not participating is that I'm the same. I haven't gotten any worse, but I've also foregone the opportunity to get better.

That's why I'd rather see it as a 'recent performance' value than a measure of writing capability.

why not just post everyone's average score over the events in which they've participated? That way, a newcomer can get right up there in a single event, and it has the "feature" you want that you have to continue being good, when you participate, to keep that score up.

I don't think this would be a good system as it could actively discourage people from experimenting or participating if they don't feel as though they can perform at their best. Say you've got a big family gathering on Saturday, and a subsequent cleanup on Sunday, so 1 1/2 days of your writing time is gone, but you still have an idea you'd really want to enter, but decide not to because you're certain you won't be able to polish it to your usual level in the short timespan. Me personally, it could discourage from participating in minific rounds, as my performance in these has been consistently bad and I don't see myself getting the hang of them very soon.

I don't think the system is ideal either, but I can live with it since I don't really care that much. I also don't see why you feel the writeoff has gotten so competitive, but that might be because noone's expecting me to perform good.

Alternatively, I'd like to throw an idea in there that I haven't seen mentioned yet: how about a seasons system? We could divide the year into quarters or halves, call them 2015 S1-4 and wipe the slates after each. This way, we could implement non-decaying scores for the stories, yet still offer newcomers a shot at getting to the top. Missing a contest would of course reduce your chances of winning this season, but you wouldn't risk your top placement for the season before, the record of which we could keep separately.

4658889

why not just post everyone's average score over the events in which they've participated?

I like this idea!

If we want old and new write-offs to be comparable, though, points should be proportional to bits of surprise. That is, say there are 2 people in the write-off, and you win. That's 1 bit; you score 1 point. If there are 16 people and you win, you score 4 points. 128 people, 7 points. You can compute the proper points for each position, too; 3rd out of 16 = -log_2(3/16) = 2.42. You can multiply this by contest word count or some other scaling factor if you like.

The goals of the leaderboard are:

1) Encourage people to participate.
2) Track who is the best competitor.
3) Allow new people to climb to the top of the leaderboard (which is a corollary of 1 and 2 to some extent).

Your goal is to be on top of the leaderboard regardless of whether or not you participate. Your goals contradict the goals of the leaderboard. Therefore, your opinion is not particularly valuable because your goals don’t match the goals of the leaderboard.

If you aren't participating, you shouldn't be on top of the leaderboard. There's no reason for the leaderboard to cater to people who aren't participating in the writeoff. In fact, it would be bad design for it to cater to such.

Bluntly: I don't think it's fair to say I've gotten worse from one event to the next just because I didn't participate. I think the only conclusion you can draw from not participating is that I'm the same. I haven't gotten any worse, but I've also foregone the opportunity to get better. Why is there a need to deduct score? I'm still losing ground anyway, sitting still while everyone who participates gains points. As it is now, a gold medal in the regular round gets 500+ points. A first-time participant who finishes last gets 0. I get -300. As far below the finalists as the last-place finisher is, I'm that far below him. Maybe it doesn't matter after everything's totaled, but the devil's in the details, and I think what the individual steps mean really does matter.

It is, in fact, entirely fair. If you can't come up with anything at all, that suggests that the people who did come up with something did significantly better than you did, because they wrote something while you wrote nothing. If someone struggles and comes up with something, why should they be penalized relative to you? If someone finishes every single race in a season, I’d say that’s a more impressive achievement than winning one of them and sitting out most of the others. The scoreboard reflects that.

Moreover, you don't understand what the scoreboard is. It is a running total of who is on top right now. You have decay over time because more recent results are more pertinent than extremely old results, but there's still something to be said for having won in the distant past. In a lot of sports, only the present season would matter, and you’d be in 5th place, below Cold in Gardez.

If you aren’t still participating, it is entirely reasonable for you to fall down the scoreboards, because you aren’t competing anymore and there’s no reason for you to stay on top.

Because I keep hoping people will see this as something other than a contest for internet points. I don't get why you're so gung-ho about the voting system being such a great topic for fine-tuning, but the scoreboard is off limits.

I don’t think anyone thinks of the writeoff as being nothing more than a contest for internet points. I can’t think of a single person who thinks of it as nothing more than such.

There’s nothing wrong with discussing the scoreboard. The problem is that the scoreboard functions the way it does for a reason, and you either don’t understand that reason or don’t seem to care about it.

I'm saying why I think there shouldn't be a scoreboard.

What you seem to be saying why you don’t want there to be a scoreboard you’re not at the top of. That’s what almost all of your arguments have been about – about how if you doesn’t participate, then you should stay up on top, and how all your points from the many, many previous writeoffs should count in full forever. You haven’t actually said anything about why a scoreboard is bad; you’ve said why you don’t like how it works.

You’ve said you don’t want a scoreboard at all a couple times, but you haven’t really explained why beyond not liking competitiveness, which seems to be somewhat strange given that you seem to be concerned with where you are on the scoreboard.

And I'll reiterate that if the goal of the decay is to converge on an average over time, why not just post everyone's average score over the events in which they've participated? That way, a newcomer can get right up there in a single event, and it has the "feature" you want that you have to continue being good, when you participate, to keep that score up.

I already answered this question in my previous post – because it means that if you do very well early on, your average score can only go down. This causes loss aversion, which is bad. It also means that if someone participates and wins a couple of medals and then quits, it is impossible to pass them, ever, which is also bad.

How everyone's gotten so hyper-competitive about these events is one of the many reasons Present Perfect isn't going to participate anymore, and being stonewalled and having discussion shut down by a few outspoken folks is another. Suggesting I quit if I don't like it is awfully antagonistic, but rest assured, you'll get your wish soon enough.

That’s not what I said:

If you're not having fun, quit playing. Why do you care if your score goes down in a competition that isn't fun for you? Why does it matter?

The scoreboard isn't magically going to make the writeoff fun for you again. It can't. That's not what it is intended to do. It is a way of keeping score which incentives participation.

You said that the writeoff isn’t fun for you anymore. You said you haven’t been that interested in the regular rounds recently. I hear from you every round that you don’t find the writeoff to be fun anymore.

None of that has anything at all to do with the scoreboard, and I suggested that if you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t play anymore.

The only reason that the scoreboard would make you miserable is because you’re upset that it no longer says that you’re the best. But if the only thing that makes you happy is knowing that you’re the best, you’re probably going to be unhappy.

In the long run, CiG and Sharp Spark will probably both pass me unless I improve, as they do better than I do, and more consistently. That’s how it goes, and I’m cool with that.

And as far as being hyper-competitive goes: I don’t think people have been hyper-competitive. People like winning, and that’s a good thing, but I don’t see many people being too upset. I think some people get upset because they don’t understand why people vote the way they do – that they don’t understand the voting populace’s choices – but that’s not necessarily tied to competitiveness (though it is to some extent, it is also tied to personal performance – if you write something you considered good, and people found it to be only okay, that’s worrisome, as it means either you’re wrong about what’s good, or a lot of people can’t identify good stories. If you see good stories win, though, and your own story isn’t one of them, then it might mean you’re overestimating your own capabilities). I’ve seen a couple people who were upset over stories making the finals a few competitions ago, but some folks have always been a bit bad at properly expressing themselves politely about stories they don’t like.

I haven’t seen people spend that much time focusing on the scoreboards, frankly; people hardly mention them. I glance at them periodically, but that’s about it. People do occasionally mention them, and they’re fun, but they’re not even a focus of the kind of competitiveness you seem to be concerned about.

4659175

I don't think the system is ideal either, but I can live with it since I don't really care that much. I also don't see why you feel the writeoff has gotten so competitive, but that might be because noone's expecting me to perform good.

I think a lot of the pressure comes from themselves, and reading too much into things.

Alternatively, I'd like to throw an idea in there that I haven't seen mentioned yet: how about a seasons system? We could divide the year into quarters or halves, call them 2015 S1-4 and wipe the slates after each. This way, we could implement non-decaying scores for the stories, yet still offer newcomers a shot at getting to the top. Missing a contest would of course reduce your chances of winning this season, but you wouldn't risk your top placement for the season before, the record of which we could keep separately.

I think quarter-long seasons would be too short; half-a-year seasons or year-long seasons might be cool, though.

I like the present scoreboard, but I wouldn’t mind such a thing being implemented instead of the present scoreboard, or in addition to it.

4659809
I replied to this in my post above:

It means that if you do very well early on, your average score can only go down. This causes loss aversion, which is bad. It also means that if someone participates and wins a couple of medals and then quits, it is impossible to pass them, ever, which is also bad.

One of the good things about the current scoreboard is that it exploits loss aversion to make you feel obligated to play. A system like that would make it so loss aversion would encourage people who did well to not play.

4659833 I agree that we shouldn't incentivise people with good records not to play. But why should we incentivize people in general to play? If you believed that we should, you'd advertise the write-off in your blog posts.

I'm generally opposed to incentivizing people at all, in anything, unless you're trying to make a buck off it. What they want to do is their business.

4660080

I agree that we shouldn't incentivise people with good records not to play. But why should we incentivize people in general to play? If you believed that we should, you'd advertise the write-off in your blog posts.

I don't advertise the writeoffs in my blog posts anymore because I feel like the writeoff is at a fairly good size. I do sometimes privately advertise the writeoffs to people I want to join. The present design of the scoreboards encourages present participants to continue playing, I think, which is good, because I like most of the present participants, but I don't think it does a whole lot to incentivize new people to join, which is fine - people shouldn't be joining because we have a scoreboard, but I think that having a scoreboard is nice.

I'm generally opposed to incentivizing people at all, in anything, unless you're trying to make a buck off it. What they want to do is their business.

I benefit from having other good writers participate in the writeoffs and give me feedback on my stories and anonymously grade them, and I benefit in that I also get to read lots of good stories by other good writers. I have learned a lot about the limits of stylistic analysis and being clever about it from here, and a lot of other things, and have a sense of friendship and camaraderie with a lot of folks.

The fact that I don't benefit monetarily from the writeoffs is irrelevant; I think my life is significantly better for having participated.

Though I can't actually say I haven't benefited monetarily from the writeoffs, because I actually have.

I fully endorse the Hall of Fame idea mentioned by 4658090 and 4658194, arranged either by points, number of stories, or simple number of writeoffs participated in. My memory is that we used to have a full list of users and that we've lost that in the new UI. A Hall of Fame type feature might be a nice way to bring that back around. It's similar to the scoreboard, obviously, but I do think there's something to be said for recognizing high-output authors. It might be a nice way to do a few things, actually, and recognize top-scoring stories overall, too, looking across writeoffs (if Roger had a way to make scores comparable—>>4659809 's "bits of surprise" idea is kind of cool and might work for something like that).

That's one of two things I wanted to say, and given that the second thing makes me a little uncomfortable, it's also the primary point of this message. But after reading a bunch of the 4657317 / 4657543 stuff, I figured I'd open my big mouth a little.

Pasco, I really like having you in the Writeoff. You write good stories, and I enjoy seeing them there. And I'm totally cool with there not being any form of scoreboard (or Hall of Fame, or whatever)—though since it's a contest, I don't think it's surprising that we have one.

But when you say, "I don't enter because of the scoreboard," that feels strange to me because I feel like you spend more time talking about scoreboard mechanics and how the scoreboard makes it necessary for you to enter than any two other people. Maybe it isn't affecting your actual participation rates, but you often seem to talk like it is. I think everyone is extraordinarily aware of the fact that you used to be on top, and that you and PresentPerfect have way more stuff than any other users—and I don't intend any snark in that comment. What you've both done is really damn impressive. I don't know if people are going to remain aware of it in perpetuity if you guys stop participating, because other entrants are getting a lot of stuff at this point, too, but I certainly have always thought of you guys as kind of the core of the writeoff. And I'm sad that it looks like you guys aren't having fun with it anymore.

But, again, to my point. You talk about the scoreboard a lot and how much pressure it puts on you to participate. I don't know that anybody else is really feeling that sort of pressure relative to the scoreboard. I'd certainly like to be higher than I am, but oh well—I need to be a better writer first, and have more output. From the way you're talking here, and the way I've seen you talking sometimes in the past, it's really felt to me like the scoreboard is a principal reason you're entering.

I don't want to say, "Leave if you're not having fun," because like I said above, I like seeing your stories in the writeoff and having you hanging around here. But if you're really not having fun, and if this stuff is bothering you as much as it seems to be, I do kind of feel like you may be putting yourself through a lot of pain for no good reason.

I know none of that really pertains to how the scoreboard works, but in the end I just don't care very much how it works. I'm here to write stories, and I love it when they do well (and love it a bit less when they fail to make the finals for two rounds running...), but for me, however the scoreboard runs, I'll probably never have a very strong opinion.

4661078 Maybe it's a fine line, but there's a difference between "the scoreboard makes we want to participate" and "the scoreboard makes me not want to participate." Yes, it's a motivating factor for me, but in the negative. I've been of the mind that it hurts more than it helps for a long time, even when I had the top score, so it wouldn't be in self-interest. I wanted it gone when it said I was the best. I didn't think it was saying the right thing then, and I don't think it's saying the right thing now. But I've given up trying to get it abolished, instead arguing to make it as palatable as possible.

4659833

A system like that would make it so loss aversion would encourage people who did well to not play.

Is it, though? One of the reasons for the current version of the scoreboard is to make it easier for newer participants to rise. If the people who do well sit on their laurels, doesn't that make it easier for the rest to attain medals? And how many people do you think would do this anyway?

4659826
Sneaky of you not to actually reply to me so I wouldn't get a notification.

It is, in fact, entirely fair. If you can't come up with anything at all, that suggests that the people who did come up with something did significantly better than you did, because they wrote something while you wrote nothing. If someone struggles and comes up with something, why should they be penalized relative to you? If someone finishes every single race in a season, I’d say that’s a more impressive achievement than winning one of them and sitting out most of the others. The scoreboard reflects that.

How is that person penalized relative to me? Maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't fathom what math makes it work that way. I don't participate, I get 0 points. He does, and he's guaranteed to get more than 0 points, unless he finishes last or wrote multiple low-finishing entries that suffered disincentivizing penalties, and the latter is entirely the risk he takes. I don't see a problem with the last-place finisher getting no more than non-participants.

And as far as being hyper-competitive goes

And the rest of that paragraph. I hope you're not saying that the voting results of a large group can be a reliable indicator of quality, or the "feature box" argument. There are plenty of good stories that don't finish well because they're too subtle for most readers to get, or because this group isn't very rewarding of experimental things. There are authors whose entries I consistently enjoy, but who rarely finish very high. Are they failures?

Moreover, you don't understand what the scoreboard is. It is a running total of who is on top right now.

No, that's what the scoreboard is, because that's what the last round of discussion on it resulted in. It's been different things in the past, and I just bet you want to call this the "right" one. Somehow, it's okay to keep rehashing what's the best method for voting, but dissent on the scoreboard is objectively wrong. I've tried gently suggesting in the past that the scoreboard might not work the best, and other people have made such suggestions too. I don't see why you're such a brick wall about it, but to be honest, this is another reason why PP left and I soon will. And no, that's not confined to the issue of the scoreboard. Look at each thing you've said to me. They're not "this is what I think." They're "this is objective fact." It is fair for non-participants to lose score. I don't understand what the scoreboard is (in a thread meant to discuss not what it is, but what it should be, no less). You've somehow divined my motives for not liking the scoreboard (and see my reply to Bradel on why that's not the case). You write your reviews the same way, and it takes a lot of work to drill through all the verbiage to find at its core an opinion disguised as fact through trying to sound authoritative. I doubt it's intentional, but it's still disingenuous and counterproductive. I don't participate in many of these discussions, because I know that if I happen to have a different opinion than you, I can look forward to being told exactly why I'm completely wrong. It's very tiring.

But I guess this is all moot. I have a few last story ideas stockpiled. If one fits this weekend's prompt and I have time, I'll use one now. I'll write the remainder for the next minific event, no matter how I have to shoehorn the prompt in. Then I'm done. It will be nice not to care anymore.

For my part:

Before the last contest, I looked at the scoreboard and saw that I was scheduled to lose 170 points. So I figured I'd take a 24 hour break from writing my magical squirrel story, try to hammer together a piece of minfic that would get me something close to that amount, and that'd be that.

Except nobody much liked the story I wrote.

The net result? Instead of losing 170 points, I lost 140, still enough to drop me from 10th place to 11th on the overall scoreboard. In other words, pretty much what would've happened if I hadn't entered that month's contest at all.

On top of that, the contest isn't just 24 hours long, is it? Because a big part of the whole experience for me is the reading and the commenting, a process that took most of my writing time for the next week and a half. And of course the final part of the experience is taking my entry and trying to turn it into less of a sow's ear, something that took me another week and also proved to be less than successful.

So, looking at the whole thing in a cold, "cost/benefit analysis" way, not working on my magical squirrel novel for those three weeks resulted in a few possibly helpful comments to a few other writers and a story no one but me really cares for. Oh, and it resulted in the nasty little voice that lives in the back of my head whispering even louder than usual: "You can't even interest Pony fans in Pony stories you're giving away for free! How dare you send original stories out to publishers and demand they give you money for them!" That's the sort of kibitzing that makes it a little difficult to swing back into the novel, too, even though it's a compilation and expansion of a series of stories I've been selling for nearly a decade so I'm pretty sure it has a market waiting for it once I get it finished.

Which is the long way of saying I'll be taking the 160 point hit on the scoreboard and sitting this round out. Besides, there are lots and lots of really good writers here doing Ponyfic, but if I don't write about my characters, no one ever will. I'll look forward to seeing what stories come out of this month's contest, and I may even end up commenting on some of them eventually since TheMaskedFerret's asked me to help out Seattle's Angels with their reviewing queue. Till next time, then!

Mike

4659826
4661346

Personally, I think the current scoreboard meets both requirements. You have the point total, which decays over time and thus favors new participants, but you also have the medal count, which never decays. Regardless of how many points Pascoite loses for not participating, he's always going to be the guy with seventeen medals. To me, that's vastly, vastly more important than your point score.

What's the point system worth? It can hardly be said to quantify who the better writer is. Ultimately, the only thing the points correlate to is the order in which our names appear in the list, nothing more, nothing less.

The medals matter far more, and they never go away.

To be honest, I've always seen the Writeoff as a collection of variously talented authors helping each other improve through a contest. Fake internet points are exactly that: fake. They have no real impact, except to give some subjective rank of quality, and it makes upset to see Pascoite, TD, bookplayer, and bunch of other folks argue about trivial numbers.

The scoreboard isn't even the point of the competition; it's to improve your writing skills through feedback. And, yes, voting on stories falls under feedback, but not everyone will like the same thing because we're not impartial judges, so the scoreboard is a result of subjectivity.

TL;DR: Who cares about points? Write, get feedback, edit, and improve.

4662586
I want to point out that I absolutely adored your story last write-off, and that it was one of my top five or so stories (possibly even top two, but I don't have a record) in my prelim ballot, which covered about half the field I think.

So... anyway, I like your pony stories and I'm happy to read them for free, even if nobody else is quite as much of a John LeCarré nerd as I am.

EDIT: Sorry, wrong thread. :P

4665667

Thanks, Bradel:

I've got other Pony stories that I'll be posting, but my current realization--if I don't write this squirrel thing, it won't get written--is kinda setting my priorities right now. Besides, the next scene in the squirrel book involves two characters, a barn owl and a wolf, who have hated each other for decades. So I'm looking forward to that.

Mike