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TowersStreet Coaster Building Contest 2021/22: Winners Declared (Competition Ended 12th May)

After what I said earlier about a potential move to anonymous Google Forms voting for the next competition, I decided to make a sample form to better show you what I’m proposing. I used the submissions from the bonus round as tester data; the link is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScpcy5-8jDp2Zf_GwuD0PEvu1NyLxkN1MVlZ_9Wg0vzxmGlag/viewform

If you wouldn’t mind, would some of you go on there, do some pretend voting (literally just select some options and submit the form; don’t take it remotely seriously), and tell me whether you prefer that to the previous way of voting? As I said in my post, the only compulsory field is the top 5; the Realism and Originality fields are both optional. You would only vote on these fields if you wanted to recognise a particular submission for Realism or Originality; if you didn’t want to pick Realism and Originality candidates, you wouldn’t have to.

I have implemented the form so that each user can only vote once, which does require you to be signed into a Google Account when completing the form, but you will remain completely anonymous; I can only see how you respond to the form. Any email addresses and such are totally concealed from me, so you should have no privacy concerns whatsoever; as I said, I can only see how you vote.

If any of you wouldn’t mind giving this tester form a try, it would be much appreciated. I just want to see how it works from my end (in terms of voting data compilation and such) and whether you like what I’m proposing.
 
Matt N said:
After what I said earlier about a potential move to anonymous Google Forms voting for the next competition, I decided to make a sample form to better show you what I’m proposing. I used the submissions from the bonus round as tester data; the link is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScpcy5-8jDp2Zf_GwuD0PEvu1NyLxkN1MVlZ_9Wg0vzxmGlag/viewform

If you wouldn’t mind, would some of you go on there, do some pretend voting (literally just select some options and submit the form; don’t take it remotely seriously), and tell me whether you prefer that to the previous way of voting? As I said in my post, the only compulsory field is the top 5; the Realism and Originality fields are both optional. You would only vote on these fields if you wanted to recognise a particular submission for Realism or Originality; if you didn’t want to pick Realism and Originality candidates, you wouldn’t have to.

I have implemented the form so that each user can only vote once, which does require you to be signed into a Google Account when completing the form, but you will remain completely anonymous; I can only see how you respond to the form. Any email addresses and such are totally concealed from me, so you should have no privacy concerns whatsoever; as I said, I can only see how you vote.

If any of you wouldn’t mind giving this tester form a try, it would be much appreciated. I just want to see how it works from my end (in terms of voting data compilation and such) and whether you like what I’m proposing.
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I've given it a go for you, I found it quite fiddley but that's less to do with the form and more to do with my sight. I think it's better than the old voting system.
 
A fantastic competition Matt! Not a bad score considering I joined in round 3 as well haha

I definitely agree with merging the voting and building rounds and after trying that google form I would say it is indeed easier than the current method.

ps. now I can say I have a fancy signature
 
Dear lord Matt, you don't have to ask our opinions on you expressing an opinion! This isn't Towers Times..... you're free to speak your mind here. If you like what someone has built, praise away. If you think I've built something that's a load of tosh, then tell me you think it's a load of tosh for all I care. I've enjoyed your hosting overall and I think the atmosphere has been great in this thread so I wouldn't overthink things.

In terms of constraints, the more the merrier for me. I like a challenge and I think it's better for the creative process. I also like solving real world problems. This is a forum where we critique every real world coaster that's built so it's good for us big mouths to put our money where our mouths are and build something better. I'm probably in a minority with the capacity stuff, but I liked having that constraint. Even where you didn't specify it, I still built all of mine with that in mind but that's probably just me being a saddo.

Not sure about the Google Form. I have an Android phone and used to use the Google ecosystem at work so it's easy for me. But I wonder if this would create a barrier to voting for others. I'd find it easier and quicker than typing but what if I didn't have a Google account and was using an iPhone or a Mac or something? I probably wouldn't bother. I'm unsure about what problem we're trying to solve with it as well, I don't think public voting caused any issues as far as I'm aware? Maybe a post with a link if people wish to use one every voting stage but default to the current public voting lists?

Don't create yourself too much work in the process though Matt. Most of it is a good process as is.
 
I decided to try the Google Form because I thought that the simplicity and anonymity it offers might make it easier for people who aren’t competing to vote. I understand that it can be quite daunting to just randomly post in a competition thread you aren’t competing in, so the Google Form would remove that element. It would also allow people who aren’t even signed up to TST but are just viewing the thread casually to vote as well; it would open up our voting pool.

The Google account feature is something that I wouldn’t necessarily have to use; a one-time-only response was something that it offered me as an option, but I trust you all to only vote once; in reality, I know that no one on here would violate that rule. So if I didn’t do that, then I don’t think it would require a Google Account, thus opening our voting pool up a bit further.

General feedback so far also suggests that people find it easier, and to be honest, I find it easier to compile the scores using that; Google just gives me a concrete number of how many #1s, how many #2s, how many #3s, how many #4s, how many #5s and how many Realism & Originality points each member has, whereas I just counted manually with the public voting method, which is a lot more crude and a lot more prone to error.

I’m not sure if any of you agree, but I also thought the anonymity might add an interesting element… it would keep the round results secret until the end of voting, which I think might be interesting.
 
Matt.GC said:
Not sure about the Google Form. I have an Android phone and used to use the Google ecosystem at work so it's easy for me. But I wonder if this would create a barrier to voting for others
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I'm not sure this is true though, because everyone has been uploading there POV's to YouTube, for which you need the same account to use a google form. I simply used my 'JApersonnotbatman' google account, named by @Matt.GC TM.
 
You'll have to forgive the lateness of this response - life sure gets busy sometimes!

Wanna say a quick thanks @Matt N for hosting this competition and everyone who played, it's been really good fun. Lot's of interesting and challenging variations each round and some extra funky submissions too.

My only suggestion would really be about time - would it be possible to have an extra week or so for submissions? Closed season tends to be the busiest time of year for me, so churning out a coaster can sometimes be a little too close for comfort.

Other than that, looking forward to the next one :)
 
The time is upon us, folks! You can now sign up for the 2022/23 contest, and I’ve written a welcoming post explaining some of the changes for this contest as well as refreshing your memory on how the contest works!

Round 1 of the new contest will drop on Saturday 5th November 2022 at 12am, so if you would like to compete, I would strongly advise that you sign up before then.

Here’s the thread for the new contest: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threa...round-1-starts-5th-november.6463/#post-384735
 
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