Changes to winner selection process for Abandoned Contests

@Dan The changes seem reasonably fair. It seems like it’s gonna be a case of ‘you win some, you lose some’ with contests where you were a candidate to win and that should even out statistically even if in a specific contest someone will feel like they should have won. A quick question- can best entries be entries that weren’t liked by contest holders and do these have a chance to win? CHs often make changes in ratings and sometimes these entries can be a perfect fit. So do you consider these poorly rated entries irrelevant or are they worth marking as best entry? As always, thanks for SH’s actions to establish a fair playing field to all creatives.

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@Vision Statistics were never my strong suit. Anyway… as long as things are fair- I’m cool with it.

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@Dan When you say effective immediately, does that mean for new contests or does it include contests that were started prior to the change? Just curious as I’m excited to keep an eye out for a thumbs up.

Also, this is not related, but ya know, 2 birds 1 stone…I recieved some “no, thank yous” and it’s showing up multiple times. Is that affecting my percentage? Thank you

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The thumbs up thing has already started!

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@Chasity2ku, the changes include all pending contests as well. Regarding the duplicate “no, thank yous” in your feed, can you send the specific examples to service@squadhelp.com so that we can look into the specific issue. The percentages are based on number of low rated entries, so if the same entry is accidentally rated twice by the CH, it will be only counted once.

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So, you are saying that you will judge all names by private communications that only one namer has seen during the contest other than the contest holder?

I think the above quote is a good example of why private communications should not be allowed and that all communications should be made public. You seem to be proving a concern that most have with private communications, that they give an unfair advantage.

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Sometimes a CH says, “I really love this!” Or something about an entry and SH takes that into account.

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@AmandaWhite, You gave an example of a rhetorical statement, that limits the range of a contestant’s potential answers to the likes of ‘me too’ or ‘how much on a scale of 1 to 10?’ :slight_smile:

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I took the phrase ‘between the creative and CH’ to indicate that the creative began the conversation since it was mentioned first. Conversely, I would take the phrase ‘between the CH and creative’ to indicate that the CH began the conversation.

I can see where the ‘I really love this’ comment could indicate a preference by the CH. But I can also see where a contest has 5 equally high scored entries and 2 of them have the ‘I really love this’ and the others 3 don’t. The CH may not have had the time that particular day to add the ‘I really love this’ comment. So a comment ‘could’ indicate a preference, it by no means ‘would’ indicate a preference.

What would the evaluation be where a creative asked a CH holder, do you like this name and the CH said yes, I do. And that was the only comment in the entire contest, not another word was written by the CH. Since, after all, the contest was abandoned, it could be concluded that the CH didn’t say all that he or she wanted to. There could have been other names that the CH liked, the CH just never got around to it.

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@Arnet, We review the communication between the CH and the contestant as one of the several inputs before we shortlist names. If the communication clearly suggests that the CH really loved an entry or they had an intention of selecting a specific entry as a winner, we believe it is important to take that feedback into account. We do our best to take all input (ratings, as well as comments from CH) to make sure we are making this process as fair as possible.

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Re HollyGirls post: It would be interesting to know if CH’s decisions are ever motivated by who the creative is. I think FerSure, esp 2 things they can see: the awards line of goodies seen when CH’s are drawn to namers’ little caves (assuming they see what I see when I look); and I think they’re influenced by the icons we provide SH. It ain’t for no reason that good-looking people offer images of themselves – here and everywhere. It’s just part of the notion we call The Unfair Birthright But Whatever!

Points R like pyrite. Right?

For the contest:

“Need a name for a company that organizes conferences, summits, trade fairs, seminars.”

Not to offense the winner (it is a good name), 5 out of my total 7 high rated names are very close to what CH already selected himself -“Smart Bridges”.

Really - No words !!!

I have to add that I thought as well any best entries would go off the original brief!!! Not the 3day extended give me any word portion. #dropped the ball

@Anjy, we have gone to great length to explain our process related to winner selection. While you might feel you should have won the contest, so do many other contestants who received high ratings, or marked their names as best entries. Your entry was shortlisted among other entries, but unfortunately there is only one winner at the end. The current process provides an equal opportunity to all short listed entries. We have asked for feedback on many threads about how to improve the Best Entry process. While we believe the current process represents the most fair way to handle abandoned contests, we are open to receiving any additional constructive feedback if you think there is a way to make this process even more fair to all contestants.

@seezall, the entire point of best entry process is to evaluate all entries that come through the end of the contest not just the first few days. If the CH provided additional direction, and asked for different type of entries, it would be unfair not to consider them in the final selection process, especially if they received high ratings from the CH.

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I have to look when home but I believe you yourself posted that you would go by original brief somewhere here on this forum,

And if you really look this was a 10-day contest first seven days was all the same brief it wasn’t until he extended the contest for another three days that he completely changed the brief from what it was originally basically a second contest

And He even ended up with more close to where he was originally “Smart bridges” - that means he wanted something related to “Connect” - excluding the word Connect itself because of some another company’s presence.
I have been in similar situation so many times, never raised a point. I know how selection process works.

This contest was a totally rated contest, with CH feedback on what he chose (out of SH though - still based on some of our entries)

If winning name was “XXXX synonym/made-up/abbr. of connect XXXXX” - I will never question it.

I also favor only winner than multiples.

Let me explain the process again so that there is absolutely no confusion going forward:

  1. We evaluate ALL high rated entries (Love it, Like It) plus ALL Best Entries
  2. We review the contest brief, as well as communication between the CH and contestant that provides additional insights.
  3. We shortlist a maximum of 10 entries that we believe are most deserving based upon the above 2 points.
  4. We pick a winner based upon a random pick among these shortlisted entries.

If a CH has not found a name, and revised their brief to provide a different direction in hopes of finding a name, we consider entries that were submitted based on revised brief as well. It would be absolutely unfair to the contestants who worked with the CH till the end and submitted names based on their revised direction and received high ratings on their names only to find that their names will not be considered for final winner selection.

I would also like to reiterate that despite our attempts to remove subjectivity from the process, the shortlisting of names is still a subjective process. We do our best to be as fair as possible and in the end we shortlist the names that we believe to be most deserving. The final winner selection for specific contests can not be challenged as it is impossible for us to provide explanation about why certain names were or were not shortlisted. We will however welcome any constructive suggestions to make this process better, as we have also asked before.

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I’ll chime in since I won that long complicated contest. One of my original submissions was Strategic Connections. The contest holder loved it…not just click the Love It button, but commented that he loved it and then changed the comments section to say that he liked those two words together. But then he commented that he wanted something shorter. So I had two shortened versions of the same concept. Both were “Love It” ratings. The description I had on Unifopia was a Unified Utopia. A perfect world where you can connect with and unify your clients. I didn’t expect it to win. I didn’t expect it to have a Love It rating. I even said “WTF? That won?” But I feel that I say that a lot on some of the contests where I really think my name is awesome and I have a good chance of winning. I finally get to be one of the “WTF” winners. In the future, instead of thinking “WTF, that won?” I will just think congratulations. I’ve been there.

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