The LogoSauce Blog
NEW Invisible entries in competitions
Hi Folks
We’re gonna make another small but significant change to Competitions – we hope for the better.
First for some background. We’ve had some complaints from designers about plagiarism. Some of you have mentioned various solutions and we’ve been asked advice about who is right in a few cases.
We don’t really want to play judge and executioner here – so we’ve listened and come up with a compromise solution we hope everyone likes.
Someone suggested hiding all competition entries until the close date so that no one can copy another design. I argued that for the competition owner this resulted in poorer entries because the reality is that all designs are derived from many things including other designs. Hiding entries removes the ability for all designs to evolve a concept from one or a few.
So the compromise is this. You decide.
You will now be able to elect to have your competition entries visible or not by other users (Default is visible). You do this by checking or unchecking the “Viewable before close” checkbox.
If you elect to hide your entry – users will simply see the hidden image graphic above – until the competition close date. At close date all entries will be revealed (unless it’s a Private Competition).
Competition Owners will still see all entries – and can comment and vote on them to give feedback. You can elect to turn visibility on or off at any time during the competition.
I hope many of you elect to leave entries visible – as it makes the competitions more interesting and I believe delivers better results. Then again there will probably be a few surprises at the close.
Visible or Not – that is the question. It really is up to you.
This change is now sitting on the dev server waiting to be rolled into production – probably Monday – thanks Steve.
By Digger over 1 years ago.
Comments:
are the competitions invisible now? Redbrick??
Yep – Redbrick is Private and no longer visible as a competition – but each entry is still visible if you search for Redbrick. Actually I think we may change it so that they (competitons) stay visible for 7days after close date.
I am unclear about Private Contests. How do we participate?
Private comps are just the same as other competitions except.
1. After close they are no longer visible on the competitions page and the link to the competition on each logo detail page is removed.
2. Individual entries are still searchable and viewable – but not together on the competition page.
3. Competition pages are not indexed by search engines.
4. Competition owner pay an extra fee to make Private.
So you participate as you would with any other competition.
Every logo in the RSS feeds is coming through as invisible even though they’re not
Rule #7: “If you are not happy with the entries and cannot choose a winner – you may extend the competition – or may upload your own design to select BUT you must choose a winner.”
This should be changed. If a person hosts a competition, they should have to choose a “real” winner, no matter if they find a winning logo or not. Simply only charge them half the prize money, or something to that extent. This junk about allowing the Comp. Holder to cop out and choose their own design just to get out of paying out any money is ridiculous. All the risk is on the designers; the CH should not get a free ride to see all these different angles on their brand for free. Digger, I do hope you take this into consideration and think about changing this. Thanks; keep up the good work.
As a buyer I have to mitigate the risk of all entries being unusable. Which means I would be less inclined to participate if I’m forced to choose a bad entry. After hosting a competition I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the entries.
Re the question of hiding some entries, I think the designers that plagiarize designs are going to end up with a bad rep. It’s also going to reduce the quality of entries due to a loss of competiveness between entrants during the contest.
It’s easy to create so many rules that you choke the life out of a nice website.
As designers, we take risks as well: the risk of not getting paid for work performed; the risk of our designs being lifted….These forums provide a venue for clients to get as many ideas, and possibly a good working logo, at a fraction of what it would otherwise cost by hiring an agency. Even then, you may walk away without what you want while still losing your deposit for services rendered, sometimes in the thousands. Here, you create a contest, and name the stakes and have designers from all over the world submitting solutions for you. The satisfaction, if one does not win, is to see a fellow designer receive the prize.
Food for thought – but right now this is a safety option for the competition owner. To date no one has taken this route – so right now it’s not an issue. But we are now asking competition owners to pay prize-money up front. Owners therefore need the security of a way out if things go awry.
Designers – if the designs are good – there should be no back outs.
I think! letting competition entries be seen during the competition process actually encourages motivation for designers to have a go and try to match the previous entry, its healthy and its constructive. Any designers worried about people poaching ideas should not because the person with the original piece of art-work, dated etc, is adequate proof who is the original author of the art-work.
Competition is Healthy Remember ! ! !
Anyone in favour of signing a petition to get rid of the – NO ENTRY ICON MASKS and leave it as it was, Nod your head if you agree, lol, or, better still just click your mouse, its easier.
I kind of agree about the competition being healthy serious designers wouldn’t dare steal ideas knowing that they’d be outed, your reputation is everything in this game, if the ideas and designs are up to scratch I wouldn’t worry too much after all you’re only designing for around $100-$200 dollars it’s not even worth getting bent out of shape for and the Logosauce people are trying to please so many people at once they’re only really trying to make it better for everyone and it’s always going to be tough. I don’t like the black out logos as I like to see every design but if it’s going to stop copying and help a few of the people that feel they’re being cheated then it has to be that way.
Just out of interest. How are the blacked out logos scoring marks? I thought people couldn’t see them.
Andy, maybe people can see them in their subconscious minds, the blacked out logos, lol. On a serious note thou, valid point Andy . . . I thought that too.
you need to fix the fact that when someone comments on a logo and then the comment is deleted, the site does not update the total # of comments of that logo. I think many of the amateur designers are purposely exploiting this to make it look like they’re getting comments simply to get people to comment (basing this on the fact that people probably will click on a logo that already has comments).
Competition owners and logosauce admins can still see then hidden logos – so can comment/rate. I don’t personally like the hidden logo idea – but that’s what some users were desperate to have. I’d like to see what uptake is like. I’m guessing it won’t be used a lot – but let’s see.
I’ll check the comment thing – but don’t see it as a big issue.
As you can see, I did not use the hidden feature until now. I am doing so now because I see too many concepts are being “modified” and put forth as their own designs and I have an issue with that. Conceptualizing is the hardest part in the creation process. Anyone can add effects and gloss things up once the concept is there. The simplest method of dealing with this would be to remove entries that are too similar in concept. If it’s not a different concept, it shouldn’t be submitted.
I agree with xpressions. Just brings up my point again about “policing” entries.
about this visible option.. you can still view a entry :) there’s a glitch. just try copy the EMBED YOUR LOGO option and paste only the link to the *.gif file.
what’s the catch? i don’t see the reason to hide a logo if you can still view it just a few clicks away…
i must repeat myself, but there is a way to see hidden logos. that means logos are NOT really hidden..
hrm..my only qualm is if you choose to leave it visible, what’s to stop someone from copying it still and then submitting theirs as “invisible” ? And will entries be “policed” or not? I think it’s not a bad idea, however, a good process would be needed for such a thing…