[POLL] Rule Changes

[chacusha]

Please take this poll to determine rule changes for Game 2.


[PROPOSAL 1] Alliances in Game 2
A reminder of the alliance system -- The six teams here at ff_land get divided into pairs (alliances). The point values of allied teams are added together and the alliance with the highest total is declared the winner. Last game it was the Thief/Monk alliance.

For the next game, the new alliances would be Soldier & Thief, Monk & White Mage, and Black Mage & Dragoon. The individual team comms would all be combined as well, meaning that Thieves would be invited to the Soldier comm as members without posting access and vice versa. Of course, individual members can still choose whether or not they actually want to join/interact with their allied team but it seemed to help team morale overall last game.

• Rationale: Creates larger "teams" and allows uneven teams to be balanced.
• Arguments Against: I'm not sure if anyone brought up arguments but I can see it being more motivating to compete if you don't have to worry about the performance of your allied team. It also may interfere with building up individual team identity.


[PROPOSAL 2] Vagrant Story
While not a Final Fantasy game in name, Vagrant Story is officially part of the Ivalice Alliance along with games like Final Fantasy XII and Tactics (Advance (A2)). Originally intended to be separate from the Final Fantasy series, it was later purposely connected back to FF by references to it in later Ivalice Alliance games.

For more information see the FF Wikia.


[PROPOSAL 3] Kingdom Hearts original characters
Currently ff_land allows any KH fanworks that prominently feature the FF characters. However, things featuring ONLY KH original characters (I'm talking Sora, Riku, Namine, Organization XIII, Hayner, Aqua, Ventus, Eraqus, Ansem, etc. here, NOT Disney or imported FF characters) have always been a vague grey area.

I can see arguments both ways. While KH and FF are strongly linked and many people are fans of both, to me it's always seemed like a separate fandom. And while I love the KH games something fierce and even my mod icon and tag banner feature Aqua, I can see how allowing fanworks that only feature KH characters could be a slippery slope. So yes, please let me know your opinion on this one!


[PROPOSAL 4] Raising stamping and referral points
For this, I'm proposing to raise the points given for sorting an applicant from 5 to 10, and the points for referring someone from 50 to 60.

• Rationale: About 1/3 of the voters in the polls said 5 points was too low, and only 12% of last game's points were earned in FF Classchange (this includes referral points). FF Minigames and some scales in Moogle Workshop are getting a boost, so it might be good to inflate the sorting points to match. 60 is also a more easily divisible number than 50.
• Arguments Against: A majority said they were okay with 5 points per application, and 10 points might be a tad high for voting on an app... (but I don't want to use a non-round number, so it's got to be either 5 or 10). roax brought up concerns about too-high referral points here


[PROPOSAL 5] Occasional restrictions on games in contests in ultima_arena
For this proposal, there would be occasional restrictions on games allowed for contests, particularly fic contests. Currently, nearly all challenges in ultima_arena allow you to submit an entry featuring any FF game. The proposal here is to have challenges where the games you can choose from are limited in order to even the playing field, as not everyone is familiar with every game.

For example, a fic written for a highly obscure game might not get the same amount of attention as one with very recognizable characters. To solve this, there could be challenges where only obscure game fic is allowed, and other challenges that are focused on a particular popular game such as Final Fantasy X. See this thread for arguments for/against.


[PROPOSAL 6] One fewer short contest in the second half of the month
Currently, the contest schedule is: one month-long challenge, two half-month challenges in the first half of the month, and two half-month challenges in the second half of the month. The proposal here is to have only ONE half-month challenge during the second half of the month instead of two, for a total of 4 contests in a month rather than 5.

• Rationale: At most two challenges would be due at a time. Right now the max is three, with one of them being the big month-long challenge. It would also tone down the end-of-the-month point bonanza that happens in ultima_arena.
• Arguments Against: Not as many contests in the second half of the month to keep people occupied.



[Poll #1744111]



Thank you! :)

Comments

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Uh, I just submitted it and remembered that Yin hasn't had a chance to look at the poll. O_O; Would it be okay if she just replies with her answers in a comment?

[chacusha]

Oh yeah, that's fine. I'll screen the comment when it comes in.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I think this is the least opinions I've had for a long time, haha. >.>;;

Until you raised the point, I've actually been really confused about how much we accept KH characters anyway, because we've already had some KH-only entries for stuff. To clarify my "no opinion" vote more, I don't personally consider KH a FF, but I don't care either way if we allow it.

[lightofeilia.livejournal.com]

Please restrict the game entries, please please please. It's really not balanced to have a UA challenge with about 5 entries for FFX and next to none for others. It's not balanced; I'm supposed to vote fairly for all of them, but it doesn't work if I don't know the game setting or the story.

Sure I could go read synopses, I could go on to ffwikia, but what if I accidentally read spoilers?

What's the point of putting spoiler warnings on fics if you're supposed to read all of them and vote accordingly?

I say restrict on fics. Art/graphics contest is fine, just fics.

[thedrowned.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it just be fair to vote on creativity or certain parameters on the UA challenges? That way, even if they don't know the game, they can still vote. I noticed that people keep complaining about not knowing the game, like they're voting on the characters, or something. I think voting should consist of writing talent and incorporation, as well as creativity as far as graphics are concerned. I guess if that's difficult for people to differentiate the two, restrictions could be enforced. But I feel badly about people who'd suffer from it.

[lightofeilia.livejournal.com]

It's not just writing talent and incorporation and creativity, it's context...

[chacusha]

Hm... I've run several icon contests, and while icons SHOULD be voted on for technical reasons, from my experience, icons featuring obscure movies or characters tend to be mostly ignored. Not sure if this is just my perception and it's not actually true, but that's the feeling I get.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Eilia, I'm going to have to disagree with you too... As I've said before, my concern is more that if we restrict games, we're going to get less submissions, and we already don't get many submissions to begin with.

Consider: It might be a bit harder to vote on things from a game you don't know well, but it's next to impossible to write for it. When I vote, I go by technical aspects more, even when I've no idea what's going on. Whereas if I have to write for the ever-so-popular FF7 or 8, for example, no amount of pretty writing is going to help.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you here. ♥ I do feel bad that people who maybe aren't familiar with a game feel like they have a hard time reading and/or voting on entries associated with it, and I can understand being afraid to read a synopsis of a game for fear of spoilers...but, at the same time, I don't necessarily feel it is fair to tell people they can't write about what they want to write about either. I mean, for submissions (or at least for me, at any rate!), I think people have an easier time writing what comes to mind first for a given challenge and what they're familiar with: to restrict the games they can write for a given challenge almost seems like stifling the creative process in a way.

I know it can be hard to judge fics based off of games one doesn't know, but I think it is possible so long as you focus on how it is written (case in point...I have voted for FFV and FFVI fics, and I haven't played either game yet and I even comment on fics for those games over at MWS). I don't think it is simply a matter of context as I've read fics for games I have played where I kind of thought the characters were OOC, but I could still appreciate how the fic was written. I guess I'm strange in that I don't necessarily feel like you need to really associate the original story with a fan fic since it is often up to the fan fic author's interpretation and their own thoughts on the game (for example, a lot of authors like to write about pairings that aren't in the actual game itself or do AU plots, which would take out the context of the original story anyways).

If the restrictions do take place, I only feel it would be fair to have challenges devoted to all of the games in the series instead of just the most popular ones. Still, I fear that restricting them will limit not only the number of submissions to given challenges, but will also limit voting as well since most people will not vote on what they're not familiar with (especially if they're separated from the other titles).

Unfortunately, the more obscure titles will probably get overlooked regardless as I've noticed that with graphic comms as well...but, I guess I'm not sure it is fair to tell people they can't write or make graphics for what they like since this is an overall FF comm. I know I've submitted obscure FF game based fan fiction here for challenges (it is actually the majority of what I write, oddly enough!) and I know that I'm probably not going to get that many votes for them partially just because of that, but I write them because that's what first pops into my head for the challenge prompts at that time and I have fun writing them.

Would I have fun writing for, say, a FFVIII-based challenge? Sure! :) I've actually written one for a prompt here and had fun with it, but that's because the idea just came to me naturally. I'm not sure how often that would be the case for every game-specific challenge though (and then there would be the ones I haven't played that I wouldn't be comfortable writing about, because it is nearly impossible to WRITE for a game you don't know...even with a plot synopsis as aid). That would be a problem with the game restrictions too, because it would be impossible to do every single game in a round, so that runs the risk of limiting what someone can submit to.

I apologize if this comes across as me complaining! Truthfully, I can see where everyone is coming from here: both the writer and the voter have very different reasons for why they write or vote for something, and I think there's very sound reasoning behind voting for what you're more familiar with for a few voters...as I know most individuals gravitate towards what is familiar even if they can see that something is well-written because they already have an idea about the characters in their minds. ...I'm just saying my own thoughts as someone who has written a lot for the fan fic challenges and try to explain why I sometimes write for the more obscure games. Perhaps dividing the challenges as thedrowned suggested would be an ideal solution, although I would definitely leave that decision to the very capable mods here. ♥ XD

[lightofeilia.livejournal.com]

Alright, what about spoilers then? What if I'm currently playing FFVI, and there are two fics containing some spoilers? So if I am supposed to be voting fairly, am I being forced to read those two fics as well? Of course I could just not vote; something I am probably going to do if games are not restricted and I find myself in no position to vote unbiasedly (and this is totally my problem lol).

I'm probably going to have to concede regarding the matter of game restrictions, but something should be done about spoilers maybe?

_{LJ ate my comment =.=}

[cowturtle.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure how setting up voting works here, so forgive me if this doesn't make sense, but I'm just trying to come up with a different kind of solution. I understand that it would suck to either have to write for games you don't necessarily like or want to write for, or wait until the game you actually want to write for comes along.

As a different solution, would it be possible to divide the voting? So, you would give the prompt, and anyone could write for any game they wanted. Come voting time, you divide the fics up into game-based groups (so... FFI-FFIV are all together, FFV-FFX are all together, or however it would be divided) and then people vote within those groups. That way, everyone can write for the game that they want, but then voters can choose within which groups they want to vote. Some people might go through and vote once within each group (effectively reading all of the fics submitted to the challenge) while other people might only vote within one or two groups (the ones containing the games that they've played). You'd end up with a couple of winners for each game, instead of just one, but this way it seems like everyone could participate.

I know it doesn't solve the spoilers problem (which is definitely a tough one) but... I tried...? (gives big puppy dog eyes)

[virago-queen.livejournal.com]

I'm very much against restrictions. I can understand how lack of context can be a pain - I flail around a bit whenever I read anything II, III, V, or Dissidia-related - but putting restrictions on writers would really dampen participation, I think. I know that I personally do not write well with limitations - you try to make me write something from IV or X, and I'm going to just fail horribly, simply because I don't have any desire to write anything for those worlds. The only restrictions I could get behind would be eliminating one game from play - like, a fic challenge where you can't write anything from VII, for instance. That would still leave some leeway.

Contests are my favorite form of participation here, fic contests especially, and I know it would really, really frustrate me if I couldn't participate one cycle because I haven't played Dissidia or something. Or if I really, really wanted to write something from VI, but couldn't because only three other people have played the game.

Context is important. One of the main things I vote on in a fic from a game I'm familiar with is if I feel the characterization is solid. But when I run across those that I can't do that with, I pay attention to the crafting - word choice, flow, plot structure. These things transcend game settings.

Sorry if I come off a little strong - this is just one of those things that I feel could really put a damper on participation, which is definitely not what we need.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

*nods* About contests, there's also the problem that pointswise, Sai and I are the only thieves that regularly write, and she's much busier, so I'm usually the only one on my team that enters longer writing challenges. And I'm the comm weirdo who knows the obscure games much more than the popular ones. (...Heck, I know all the obscure games better than all the mainstream ones.) So, at the cost of sounding whiny, it's really not fair that I wouldn't be able to enter something, especially since I supply most of my team's writing entries.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I can understand that! I think my fear is that restrictions would definitely limit creativity and the amount of participation in challenges (something that is still a bit lagging on some of the teams, especially in terms of the writing challenges).

Considering that I can't really enter the graphics challenges too much and the only other way I can get points is by voting on entries...my main source of point-earning for Team White Mage comes from either submitting fan fics for challenges or posting them in MWS (I'm well aware that my FFIII fics aren't probably going to be read by a lot of people, but I still have fun writing them so I'll probably continue to do so for future challenges if they're not restricted! XD). Quite a few of my favorite challenges are the fan fic ones for that very reason.

I would feel terrible if I couldn't submit for a challenge because it was about a game I didn't know or feel comfortable writing about (it's nearly impossible to write for a game you haven't played, for instance). And I do think context is quite important for fic writing too, and I definitely do pay special attention to that especially if I'm not familiar with a game that a fic is about (I have read some amazing FFV, FFVI, and The Crystal Bearers fics here that I really adore despite not having played the games myself yet). I think there are aspects about writing that definitely transcend game settings. :D

[glacialphoenix]

Alongside the participation problems - I kind of feel that if you started restricting games, you might just exacerbate the problem? Some games are more well-known than others; this isn't really something we can do much about. But if you started restricting games, I feel that there would be even less incentive to vote? Like, "Oh, this is a challenge for the spinoffs. Well, why bother?"

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I think you're making a very valid point. XD Not only could it hurt participation for submissions in general, but I could definitely see it becoming an issue with voting as well (people are already less likely to not vote what they're familiar with and there are more popular games out there, not really much anyone can do about that! Still, limit a challenge to something like the earlier games, the online ones, or the spin-offs and I can definitely imagine people just not bothering to vote or read). O_O; ...Says the person who plays CC Ring of Fates, lolz.

[lightofeilia.livejournal.com]

The vote is 7 to 9 here, why am I the only one defending game restrictions? *pouts*

[glacialphoenix]

...that's a very good question. D: It certainly isn't a case of just you supporting game restrictions. IDK why the rest aren't being more vocal. D:

I'm really sorry, Eilia. I know it's difficult on people to vote. :(

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's what I'm wondering too. I'm kinda more annoyed at people for not speaking up about it than the fact that it's being voted. O_o

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Er, new thread again with another point I have--

Okay, this bit will sound a little arrogant and selfish, but I think honestly is an important point:

Should someone's 5-points-10-minutes-voting opinion really take precedence over someone's 40-points-2-days-writing opinion? :\ To me, that seems a little selfish. To put it harshly, if you don't want to vote, then don't vote. You're losing a lot less than saying I can't write for something even if I want to, unless I want to jump through hoops for it.

The other thing I just thought of was -- despite the fact that quite a few people voted for restrictions, no one's really saying anything other than Eilia. So... what exactly do the rest of you guys want restrictions for? Fic? Graphics? Art? For the same reasons as her or for different reasons? To put it more rudely, do you really have an opinion or are you just voting it for a kinda "yeah, might be nice I guess" kind of thing?

Again, arrogant and selfish, I apologize, but I feel like our actual spoken opinions should count for more, including opinions for both sides of the argument. To me, it's kinda like, if you're not even willing to say anything about it, then you probably don't really care much about it.

And again, my point from before -- I think this comm's too small to have restrictions. The previous landcomm I was in had some 30-40 fic and 100+ icons for every challenge. I think if we have that level of participation, having restrictions would be perfectly sensible. But with 5-10 entries (closer to the 5 bit most of the time), participation would drop a-whole-lot. To me, this is more important than what we want, and what we don't want. If we were a bigger group, I'd say we should/can have restrictions even if I hate the idea. But I think, until then, we shouldn't.

Also, note for thedrowned -- wondering if you should have a poll for what people would be able/willing to write, too, not just what they can read and what they like? I think the results might possibly be a little more varied.

[chacusha]

I haven't voted but from a neutral/mod point of view, I'm a fan of restrictions in general for the reason of fairness. I know people prefer the ability to choose a subject they like, so I would never have a comm where all challenges have game restrictions. But I come from an icontest background where a mix of open-ended and provided image contests is normal. I know fic =/= icons and game restrictions on fic hit harder than they do with icons, but the issue of fairness is the same with both.

You have a good point with the size of challenges. We have actually consistently gotten 9-10 entries for short fic contests for a while, so I think it's feasible to split the voting but it may be better to wait until we're a size where we get 12+ entries for those challenges.

What about, for example, if I have a short contest where you can submit 2-3 entries of whatever you want, but the voting later gets split into separate categories based on the obscurity of the game? This would not affect writers, but still even out the entries for voters, at least roughly?

[glacialphoenix]

Seconding arivess' request that we compare what people are willing to write? Because I think the things that the fic participants like aren't necessarily the things that most voters are familiar with.

Compiled a list of stats here; feel free to compare with poll stats here.

[chacusha]

I admit, I had trouble filling out the first question of the games poll. I've never played FFVII but the characters are iconic enough that I consider myself familiar with them. Familiar enough to read/appreciate, but not familiar enough to write. I wish I'd realized this distinction earlier. :/

Thank you for collecting those stats so neatly! (I did the same last night but in a very rushed/rough manner.) One nitpick I have, though, is that I think the Dirge of Cerberus epistolary fic should definitely be counted separately from the 2 FFVII fics. That fic only featured characters original to DoC, which most people haven't played.

[lightofeilia.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend suggested something:

Say there's an FF3 fic, and this person who has played FF3 votes for it to be the first place. That vote could weigh maybe 1 vote. And for people who haven't played FF3, if they still feel like that FF3 fic is good enough to be first place even though they've never played it, it could weigh 2 votes for them?

Lol.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

;_; I honestly think you're trying to fix a problem that isn't really there. I know you're trying to make it fairer for more obscure games' writers, but we're not the ones complaining that no one's voting our fics. XD;;

[glacialphoenix]

I... really want to know what the others who haven't commented think?

Because the poll says "restrictions on games for UA", but UA challenges include icons, fics, meta, wallpapers, etc. So far only Eilia's said something, but a good solid portion of the votes have gone to supporting restrictions.

I don't see this ending happily. If many people feel the same way Eilia does, about fic, that's not the same as some people thinking of it as 'restrict games for icontests' and some people thinking 'restrict games for fic', because the effects of doing one or the other are going to be vastly different. And that's just going to lead to this same argument next round.

[the-404-error.livejournal.com]

In a general sense as I didn't have enough time to fully comment earlier (moving, starting new classes, etc = time consuming):

Pretty much all of the reasons for not wanting restrictions have been given already, but personally, if I write something from a lesser known game, I'm aware that it's probably not going to win. In this sense, I'm already setting myself up to fall at the start and am aware of this... As most of the other writers for more obscure fandoms seem to agree, there's no need to impose restrictions to ensure fairness in that regard. (... and as I mentioned in a comment above, people may still vote in a way geared towards favortism in that regard, so nothing is ever perfectly fair.)

It seems the issue here is that someone may feel guilty for voting for what they know instead of for a possibly better written fic, but... don't be. It seems we're all just writing for the fun of it, and as long as the substance and creativity behind the fic were taken into consideration, there's no real harm done. No one is going to go "Wah, I didn't win a contest on teh internets because I wrote about FFII. D: My life as I know it is over. Why do I failll"

... and I love how most are voting to not include KH characters, or at least that they don't care. XD

[arivess.livejournal.com]

XD I think the KH thing actually kinda reflects most of our position. It's kinda like, as long as you're not making me do something I don't want, then I don't really care. I'm for when in doubt, allow more freedom rather than less...

[freijya.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a lot of debate about the Game restrictions going on, so even though I voted for "no opinion either way," I guess I'll throw some of my own thoughts in.

I've been trying to read the other comments about this (there are a lot! So I'm sorry if I breezed over some and didn't read key points) but the bottom line is, no one wants to restrict each others creativity. The restriction on fic challenges is a matter of making the challenges fair for all parties involved. But I'm having a problem seeing what the central issue is: is about making it fair to voters so that they can vote fairly and accurately on fic to give credit where credit is due, make it fair to the writer's who worked hard on a fic but might not get the attention because its obscure, or to make it fair to writer's, so they can write whatever they want? Or is a fairness issue between voters vs writers? (The spoiler thing is a fair point and hard to address)

In my opinion, having restrictions on challenges doesn't necessarily mean that we have to restrict creativity. If we have a challenge that says, using only the futuristic-type FF games (6, 7, 8, 10, 13) or the more medieval ones (1-5, 9, 11, 14, the many Tactics, Vagrant Story, etc) than the same rules apply to that challenge like any prompt challenge; if your inspired, write for it, if you aren't, don't. The important thing would be if you make a restriction, that you provide another alternative or challenge for those who weren't inspired (then it might be important to have that extra UA challenge) The point of restrictions would be to keep things fair, so of course it would be important to have enough challenges to inspire everyone.

I believe that arivess (Not to pick on you specifically, Ari!) made the point that writing for obscure fic comes with the expectation that you probably won't win the contest, but if that's the case, why bother writing for the contest? Posting at moogle_workshop also garners points. The majority of contest points comes from the voting, and while participation does earn points, its no where near the same as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. So while I agree that its important to give writer's free creative license, the voters play a huge role in point distribution. So if voter's choices are skewed towards certain fandoms, the actual point distribution starts to favor teams that write for those fandoms. That to me, is where the real unfairness could lie.

The group here at ff_land is a pretty tight knit group. The doors of communication are always open, and it is in no one's interest to be unfair to another member. If we keep those doors open and just pilot a test restricted challenge, than we can move this theoretical discussion about fairness to a concrete example. If no one goes into the challenge feeling unheard or treated unfairly and try to keep an open mind, then the results of the challenge will speak for themselves. If at the end, some one still maintains there opinion that it was unfair, that's perfectly fine! Changes can be made or the attempt can be abandoned all together. As a member of ff_land, beyond alliances, we are a team and we work to accommodate each other and have fun at the same time. As the mods have made abundantly clear with evaluations and polls, everything is open to discussion. Maybe doing an actual pilot might cement where the real unfairness lies, so that everyone can work together and find a happy medium.

These are just my thoughts, though, so please don't be offended or feel like I'm trying to impose my opinions on you. :)

[thedrowned.livejournal.com]

People write for the contests because they still get points for participating. They just may not get the big hefty bonus for winning at the end. I think people who write the obscure fanfics are more than happy with this, or at least accepting of the downside of writing for obscure fandoms.

You've had the most thought-out response so far, I think. Doing a test-run is the only sure-fire way of knowing whether restrictions will work or not. chacusha, what do you think?