The True Creative must be Anonymous

Feedback & Suggestions
#1

Colleagues, the Squadhelp Team!

We have been working together for many years. We change together, grow together and strive to make our website better. However, there are still violations of policies, because our strength is people. And our weakness is also people. To avoid the human factor, there is only one solution: all entries should be made anonymous for the contest holder. Accordingly, all creative messages in the main part of the contest should also be depersonalized. No names, no avatars! Only True Creativity!. With this simple step, we will get rid of abuse by some creatives. Only in this case, the contest holder will be able to evaluate the entries, and not their authors by the number of wins.

We already have anonymity in our domain marketplace: no one knows who owns a particular domain. This decision does not mean a complete rejection of personality. All public accounts and portfolios will be available to site visitors. Anonymity will affect only contest entries. For us, the contest participants, both the ratings and the list of Top Trending Creatives on the right will be available. We will know the true winner after the win, as it was before.

35 Likes
#2

So in your proposed system would we all be numbered? Creative 1, creative 2, 3, and so on? What happens when someone gets upset because they think that creative number 2 has an advantage over creative 265?

2 Likes
#3

I wasn’t surprised that you were the one asking this question. Absolutely right, all the contestants will be numbered and depersonalized for the customer. The creative that offered the first entry will be numbered as Creative 1. And Creative 265 will not be offended, because next time he (she) may be the first. Team don’t have to bother and assign new numbers to creatives. They can use numbers that indicated in the browser bar in the addresses of our accounts. The important thing is not the process, but the principle.

11 Likes
#4

We don’t even need a number… just let the CH see the entries and nothing else.

23 Likes
#5

Edukar, I have to say that is a pretty great idea. And so simple, I don’t know why no one has thought of it before. I hope they think about it, this is a great direction.

25 Likes
#6

Love this idea! It certainly would level the playing field.

22 Likes
#7

I like this idea as well. Let the names speak for themselves. :slight_smile:

21 Likes
#8

Just a bit confused, the only entries I can see are my own, unless you are referring to the winners section? It seems to me that anonymity could be in the Q and A section. Honestly, if I’m a business woman, I’m picking based on what I love or think is right for my business. I personally, if a contest holder makes the honest mistake of giving advantage facts under my entry messages, (happened maybe twice). I message that anything to that effect should be under public messages. I once had a contest holder say, oh thats a great idea so everyone can see at same time, as if they did not know. They immediately posted under public q and a. Which I think comments should be renamed to. creative questions for contest holder and additional contest guidance to creatives. Something like that. Not sure again, how SH communicates but that should be clear on their end. What does happen is a contest holder will sometimes no thank you with a reason that could benefit others. For example, there are too many competitors that use that concept. Could that benefit everyone? Sure, but I assume if Im getting that kind of feedback, so are they….up to the first 500 entries a ch is supposed to rate…Im sure it wanes after that. Squadhelp, needs a secret shopper. That is, someone to occasionally hold a mock contest and give feedback on both ends in a detailed report with questions that answer both its and our concerns not just stupid stuff. I used to shop so I know the kind of silliness companies concern themselves with. We can come up with a detailed list of questions such as Edukars concern, how much were you influenced by someones biopage, for example. Personally, Id love to see the other end perspective, also then we can stop hounding them with suggestions that have been resolved.

2 Likes
#9

I wanted to clarify, no matter what number was assigned to the creative, the CH should not be able to click and go to the contestant’s page. This is zest of my idea. Pure creativity without reference to the naton, gender, age, social status and previous wins.

19 Likes
#10

Slogana, they mean blind submissions, where the CH just sees name ideas, no profile pic or indicator of who submitted each option. The creatives would still see top trending and the winner could be seen by everyone after the contest closes, just like now. But the CH would only be judging each submission on merit, no possible bias in regards to favoring a particular creative.

17 Likes
#11

ah, thats different, biases, I’m sure exist, so I get it, I often wondered if my own words in my bio puts me at a disadvantage. My pseudonym also makes me sound foreign (to an American) and I wondered if that would work against me. Lack of wins may indeed bias. Im proud of my paltry winning name page though. Its something I can show family and looks pretty professional, I use bios, to see what I am against. In my case, age and professional titles. I have checked others bios, and I’m a peanut in terms of resume experience.Im pretty sure though, when my name is great, doesn’t matter what my bio is though. I mean in the job world, a resume speaks loud. Having said that, I had zero wins and a crappy bio the first win.

#12

Honestly, with the volume of names submitted now I doubt many CHs take the time to look at bios. But being anonymous would assure everyone we are competing on a level playing field, and also maybe take some pressure off. Just create, not try to sell your persona as a creative, you know? I think the profile thing was part of the original gamification concept of the site, but the leaderboards accomplish that fairly well on their own.

13 Likes
#13

Your last words confirm my thoughts. The CH needs to abstract from the “loud resume” of creative and focus entirely on a good name for his company

9 Likes
#14

I think the same way.

1 Like
#15

I assumed they already did that, honestly though, can’t see anyone picking me based on mine. Mine certainly dates me. I often wondered if my not having a professional picture of me was a disadvantage. I mean we could have a service where someone looks at peoples bios and makes recommendation, similar to a resume service.
We do have people at a language disadvantage as well. So the name only thing works there.At the end of the day, we keep them pretty busy rating and rerating, not sure how many bios they are looking at. I once complimented a particularly great contest holder great response, great consideration for us. I did this in public comments. Since the product hit close to home, I couldn’t help but say so. Sorry weak moment. I was pretty scared of getting accused of seeking unfair advantage. It seemed to me, though, that if I took the time to say how great a bunch of folks were, which this ch did, and no-one responded in appreciation of my extra effort, it would be a bit of a downer. I didn’t win, but if I had? In those cases, I’d love for us to contact bb, and have them send a final note to ch on behalf of the creatives, and no generic ■■■■. The issue if it exists, exists in messages, but I’m game. Only concern is I want them to SEE us, as professionals waiting, to be blunt, for info, feedback and our money. Real people to be considered and not just name generators. Anyway All daisy, and you others, glad you are in this, sometimes it seems its the same 10 people of which I am one.

2 Likes
#16

gotya, just for fun, look up the story of the lady that named Prego spaghetti sauce. As for the resumes, sure a boatload of professional accolades help, but it also true that poor sentences, spelling etc count against you. It is hard to translate expressions of speech as well.

#17

Well I mean this is directed at me. It wasn’t too concealed.

So when I submit blue cat, blue dog, and blue pig. I get a warning on blue pig not to submit more entries with blue or I’ll be blocked.
If the CH can’t tell us apart- how are you guys going to feel when the CH thinks we are the same person and you submit blue summit? You get blocked and I don’t because they think all entries came from the same person. They wouldn’t know if 10 trash entries came from one creative or 10 different ones. Do they block every rating or the 11th?

In my opinion it’ll just create more blocking and confusion. Just my thoughts.

#18

This is a fantastic Idea!!! I love it @Edukar for suggesting and @AbleBrands for suggesting not using numbers or anything at all. Just an entry and that’s it. Then they concentrate on the entries and rate away. What a simple and fair playing field for all.

16 Likes
#19

lol, the people who write the code are going to love this one. Tell you what, at the very least SH should beta this idea for 60 days, if nothing else, it will put an end to the debate one way or another. It might put an end to some other stuff as well.
I have to add. I ask a question in public messages about 50 percent of the time. It can be a fine line between a good question and fishing. When I saw all this stuff about people seeking extra attention, I became leary of asking and had the typical soc media paranoia. But the thing is, I find questions useful and some of you ask questions Id have never thought of that could have spared me an hour of time.

I have a thought, is there a way, for the system to track what bios contest holders are looking at? And a way for us to be notified if our bio was looked at? Also, any forum can tell you, people can hide behind anonymity and get a whole lot…nastier.

#20

Thank you so much for sharing this idea. @grant I truly hope SH will do this!!!

15 Likes