Help Decide the Best August Articles

This is so unfair to the authors. The article that has most wider audience will of course be the winner. Not a way to judge the "best" article but yeah the most "popular" article here at CG.

I think the point here is to read all the articles (well... Most of each article) then make a decision..

Also the article Reads are not linked to the poll ... you need to come back here to vote..

Any anyone not even taking the time to read at a minimun the first page of each article, Should not vote...

Spent a good bit of time reading before i voted...

I agree that the more popular will win...but in this case, popular will very likely reflect the better article.

Plus, you are seeing a filtered version of the articles that were published. The Reviewers and I already did some evaluation regarding quality and such.
I was going to mention that but wasn't sure if I should.

We'll do a new voting for Cash for all Articles posted in September through October 14th! That includes articles you post now!

Just to make sure, as you know, I'm not the brightest dude around :blush:

So there is another competition running until October 14 for articles submitted until then
:wave:

I assume scripting languages are still not included in this.

Yes - If you submit an article between now and October 14th, then there is a chance for $200 (again).

Brad!

Great! I will be submitting 2 articles in October. Hope I can finish and submit them in time. May I know why October 14th, why not the whole of October?

Brad!
Item article #2 and article #3 are linking to the same article.

Thanks. Link is now fixed.

Brad!

That doesn't seem fair.

People who submitted an article in August only had to compete against one month of submissions.

Now you're saying if you submit in September, you are competing against two months worth of submissions.

I think if this is going to be an ongoing competition, the playing field should be leveled. It ought to be apples against apples.

... Now submitters have twice the time to make an article twice as good. ;)

I must remember that logic the next time my work deadlines are approaching. I'll be able to double my time, and get twice the accolades.

Brilliant.

Also impacting that date was the gap in time that it takes between getting an article and having it reviewed to be posted. If you submitted an article on September 30th, it likely didn't make it onto the site until October 1st or later. We said things had to be published in the date range, but that is not controllable by you, so that seems even more unfair...I think for a competition the date of input should count all others would be a problem. What when an article which is cruel long needs more then one week from submission to be published and would be submitted on the 10 th of october but published on the 18th because the lectors had to much to do and did some shorter cycles in before. If you count the date of publishing, then this article would not be counted but the author had no influence on that time lag and would feel like betrayed of his chance. Maybe a two month cycle would be good. A competition can start when the last period has just ended. So when one period ends peple should have time to read the articles voting then can start 14 days after Closing day and the result of the votings could be published in the end of the next month.

To get a better picture an example: ( dd/mm/yyyy)
competition start 1.1.2008 deadline 20.2.2008 Voting start 15.3.2008
voting end 20.3.2008 results 31.3.08
competition start 28.2.08 deadline 20.4.08 voting 15 5.08 results 30.5.08
competition start 1.5.08 deadline 20.6.08 voting start 15.7.08 end20.7.08 results published 31.07.08

I hope you can follow my ideas about interlaced periods here. Basically this can be done in shorther cycles too, but thats depending on the money which is reservated for such an action. Basically if you want to do it regular whats not good would be periods in between wich doesn't count to any of the competitions, asmaybe in this time the amount of articles would go down. The other possbility would be to do it random..
In this case I think authors wouldn't wait for the next competition.

So this are my two cents about it. Hope there is anything useful for you.

Sorry I canot see any unfairness in it. ... Come on.

Well, let me help you see.

Assume, there are 3 winners per game "time frame".

One time frame is 30 days (the August contest)

The next time frame is 60 days (September and October)

We will assume there are 20 articles published each 30 days.

The first contest has 3 winners for 20 articles.

The 2nd contest has 3 winners for 40 articles.

Is my math totally screwed up or don't you stand a better chance of winning in the first contest? Come on.

Well, let me help you see.
Assume, there are 3 winners per game "time frame".
.....
The 2nd contest has 3 winners for 40 articles.
Is my math totally screwed up or don't you stand a better chance of winning in the first contest? Come on.Mathematics especuially statistics could be used to proof everything. The first truth is, you simple do asumptions that cannot be proven. Who says that the double of time will bring a double amount of people publishing an article.
So it could also happen that we also have only 20 articles in the two month period. Or you could get 200 in one month because its just holidaytime and people have time to write an article like me last month.
In my case I could easily do this in August, but very much more difficult now, because the job needs work too.
So mathematics with variables used arbitrary just as they fits to proof an idea, is not good. The whole thing is only an idea, nothing else.
The truth is: All of us had a chance to write an article in August,some did, some not. Now there is again a possibility to write an article and again a chance to win, and again everybody has the chance to win.
If one has done the August competition he maybe would have had a better chance then in the next one, maybe not, nobudy knows. Maybe when there is another competition done at chrismastime lots of people needs to do family concerning things and have less time again. Is it unfair then to have a competition during chrismas time as there are less people doing an article nd that one who does have a better chance again. - Or maybe its to hot in Vienna to work on an article so it would be unfair for me to have a competition in that time.

No, none of that. If you have the same rules for all in one game then it is fair. You never in life get reallly the same conditions twice in life.
If you are playing games where the win is devided to the amount of winners. like in Bingo I think or here in Austria the national lottery. Sometimes they have a bigger win then in another time, sometimes they have one winner who gets all the mones, sometimes they have 10 winners and every of them only gets 10 percent of the win. Not fair ?
But maybe the 10 % are more then another win someone has had alone.

You are on the wrong track. The simplicity behind all that is. You have a game and you have rules, And you can choose to play the game or not, your decision. and you may win or loose which maybe a bit has to do with luck - thats what I can accept.

Doing an article within two month and having maybe more articles there reduces the chance for everybody who playes the game - and this way it is FAIR. As told from another one you have the chance to do a much better workout if you have more time and this way increase the chance to win, even when there are 1000 articles. May the best get the price. Next time - next try - next luck. Take it as a game instead of a calculation.

I think the best way to deal with this is to make it a quarterly event. 3 months of publishing times, and the month next to that quarter be the open poll duration based on which you decide the winner. Keep it strict with the dates in that only the publishing date is considered and not the submission date to be included in that quarters poll. If it gets delayed by a day or two - no worries - have it considered for the next quarter rather than bend the dates to include them into the past one.

If you need to, you have various options:

1. Increase the winners (3 per month, so 9 for a quarter)
2. Keep the count of winners (3) constant and increase the individual award money.

Both should be okay. Since it would be quarterly based - you will have more article submissions to consider the best ones from (you might be having this on a monthly basis as well but it will be of course more than that).

Quarterly event would give writers to spend more time on their articles - you can pass them on back to authors on first review with enhancements or ways to better it etc etc. Or if the writers are confident and have got it good to go then they can have more submissions per quarter, no problems at all and their all submissions might get good enough to win something. Also, I think this way, it will be more manageable to for you and considering irregularities of members visiting the forums - will help nullify this effect to certain extent.

On the whole, I think it has more benefits.

but, the contest was for best article in AUGUST. I think that the contest should stand without the added entries.I think there is no problem with the August contest. Its done. Brad is looking forward how to do for the future.

Consider new submissions since then eligible for a future contest. Maybe three months? November 30th?I think considering new submissions since 1.Sept is also fine, brad has to decide for this contest where the deadline is. pllaced. In the moment he has said 14 th October I think. I'm not sure if submission date or publishing date is meant. IMHO submission date is something which can be controled by the autor. Publishing date is complicated that way, that you never know, if you will be within the contest or not. Whats when you submit on first of october a very long article and it needs until 16 th of oct to publish it ? Out of the game -not so good idea. Better you have a deadline and all which are submitted within deadline are in the contest, maybe some of them then are published some days after the deadline. But the lectors in that case also would not have to hurry and you get a good quality out. Telling people - ok you will be in the next contest is a good idea, but whats when Jupiter media decides to finish money for contests ?
You would have send an article within the deadline but would not have had a chance to be in the contest, for reasons you are unable to handle. all games I know are working with a submission deadline.

How can one vote/decide for the best article if it is not published yet? One can workaround that though, have a 15 days gap or something between the submission and poll. But what is the problem if an article gets nomination in the next cycle (according to the rule)?There would not be any problem in this, if you totally can be sure that a next cycle will happen. So if this constest starts to be a regulary game e.g as someone suggested 4 times a year, it would not be a problem. But whats when the competition is ended for any reason ? A

Another problem may be complaints of authors in a way: I have send in my article long enough before deadline, now I wasn't in this competition where I wanted to be. In this competition have only been 10 articles in the next competition there have been 30 So I havn't had any chanc to win.. blah blah blah. As long as competitions are for fun only nothing happens, when money occures in the peoples sight all has to g on lines which grants legal security for the gameleader. The submissiondate can be proofed by the upload protocols I think. The date of publishing could be delayed by any reason so this could always be interpreted as the jury's fault. - I'm in business for years, believe me, all what deals with money needs to be totally exact, or it leads to problems, because we all are human and human have emotions, sometimes terrible ones.

When the competition is 4 times a year only then the voting could happen one month after deadline. In this time is time enough to publish all articles and enough time for people to read them Maybe the time for voting then could be expanded to a full week or so. This way the lectors and Brad too, wouldn't get in so much stress to get articles out, as they are when they try to get all submitted articles published before deadline.

Also: If you as an author have a deadline you know exact, when is the last day for submission. If the deadline is the day to be published, so whats the last day for submission ? 3 days before deadline, 5, 10 ?

I for my person I'm not a writer who writes and instant submitts the material. First I'm coing the full project, then working out in which form it could be presented to get others understanding whats the idea behind, then working on drwings,writing text and code together, on a separate screen testing the code part putted into the textscript. Gettng out points where the project could be compiled by the user.
Then reading all the article again if it could be understood if necessary changing text, drawings, whatever, getting a friend for testreading it and again if neded changing some textparts to better it... I dislike to submit it to early. So if I have a deadline, which in reallity isn't my deadline I'm out of control for this production cycle and thats, what I totally dislike. Professionalism has to do with good control on every cycle of a production cycle. When I'm buying a ticket its not interesting me if the lottery has got the money from the dealer in between, I have bought it before lotto date and if I win, I win, nobody could come and tell me, we havn't gotten your money from the dealer, so you will play in the next game. Get the idea: Nobody who plays in that game can make the jury wrong for his own fault when he has submitted his work after deadline, but easily when it isn't counted and he thinks his submission was early enough, because it was 5 minutes before deadline. So I wouldn't do any rules that includes only a tiny possibility for getting queries or other troubles. Much better to have a bit of delay between publishing and voting date. Thats my ideas about that.

There would not be any problem in this, if you totally can be sure that a next cycle will happen. So if this constest starts to be a regulary game e.g as someone suggested 4 times a year, it would not be a problem. But whats when the competition is ended for any reason ?It can end earlier as well.. it can be taken off while the poll happens or even when the poll has finished and closed. I think, Brad/JM/whoever, would keep those rights with himself/themselves.
Another problem may be complaints of authors in a way: I have send in my article long enough before deadline, now I wasn't in this competition where I wanted to be. In this competition have only been 10 articles in the next competition there have been 30 So I havn't had any chanc to win.. blah blah blah. Can be interpreted the other way as well where chances become better. And why should people fear about competing with more or better articles? Or are you saying that awarding not-so-better articles is a better idea just for sake of getting more articles to pour in?

The publishing date is important because on that depends the exposure to and base of readers and hence directly the poll. It also affects the google web crawler (and others), on which depends the chances of finding an articles searched via google. Submission date has no significance at all here.

A better idea would be to have a poll that only includes articles with published life greater than or equal to 3 months and not included in the last poll. For the first cycle, exclude the articles that were published before August (they already came under this poll) and much older ones don't qualify.

Has the winner(s) been decided yet

I'm going to be traveling the next three days. I'll announce the recepients of the cash by Monday - worst case.

Brad!

I'm going to be traveling the next three days. I'll announce the recepients of the cash by Monday - worst case.

Brad!:D :D Halooo. Its worst case Day !! :D :D :D

< See how I'm building anticipation! >:lol: :lol: :D

Congrats JonnyPoet, Arjay and Hannes du Preez on the award :wave:

Congrats JonnyPoet, Arjay and Hannes du Preez on the award :wave:Thx a lot for the gratulations. Thx for your acknowledgement friends. I'm just working on my next part it will be submitted soon.

As I know Hannes is also working on a new article. Lets see what he will have for us. ( I personally enjoy his style ) And he is helping so much in VB and VB net forums.
Gratulations to Arjay too. As I have seen he's very good in C# too, and I'm ... srry to say ... not good enough in C++ I really would suggest him to write some intro lectures about Multithreading in C# Maybe beginning easy with backgoundworker and then some more complex stuff. I really would like to follow his lectures that way.

Great job to everyone! :thumb:

Thank you everyone for the recognition, I appreciated it. :wave:How would you like to appreciate us? :) Save it for a treat when we meet... someday!

Congrats to the three winner! Looking forward to reading new articles from you. :thumb: