HI GUYS SORRY FOR THE SHORT RESPONSE BUT ITS THE TDV SO I GOTTA GET MY POST COUNT HIGH SO I NEED TO MAKE SHORT SPAMMY POSTS

YES I LOVE TDV

This is the first year that I am really competing. I am enjoying it, and haven't run into any spam yet. I vote yes. The way I compete is make long and detailed posts so that I can compete for all four jerseys at the same time.

TheFadedWarrior : I hope you were jus being sarcastic. Because if you are not you might get disqualified from the blue jersey. While, yes, people tend to post more during the Tour, spammers are quickly punished

janus :

But you're not an admin. o-o


Pertaining to the topic...

Furret and I had a conversation in chat about why the TdV has such a bad reputation. There are many possibilities for its bad reputation, but a lot of people misunderstand it. While the saying of "quantity over quality" does come into play during TdV, that isn't always a bad thing. It can spark discussion as long at it's done well.

janus : Of course I'm being sarcastic.

I myself actually really enjoy TDV even though there is some bad points to it, it's just that it has many good points as well.

the cons of tdv is yes, of course there is usually a larger amount of spammy posts of people trying to get blue jersey and what not or someone finding a way to abuse something to get more cp or actions.

but on the pros tdv, also brings so much revenue, is exciting, and plain fun. 

I find TDV a time to not just post but a time to get everyone involved in one big fun event, not only do lot's of threads get posted in we also get great new topic threads, and everyone i've seen has a great time competing with one another. And the team competitions also really show that even during tdv teamwork, friendliness, and communication is shown.

My feelings about TdV are kinda mixed.
I like that it increases the traffic and activity, but at the same time, it makes it a bit harder to monitor and moderate and like geeo said, it does annoy me a bit that there are double the posts during TdV when we need activity like this all the time.

Vanelan : your position says global, so I suppose that you oversee ALL the forums? If so I can understand that your burden increases. However, the forums I look at the most (review, politics, entertainment) seem to have pretty consistent activity level.

janus : Yes, I monitor all the forums as a global. The locals do help with their forums though.
As for the increase, I just meant as a whole.

I've already stated my opinions several time but overall I dislike the TdV more than I like it for a few reasons mainly.

Activity

I know what's touted as the main beneficial aspect of the TdV is the site activity increase it brings but I personally don't really think that increase is very noticeable considering the people who compete in the TdV are people who are already well established members of the community not actual new members (which if anything is shown through the deadness of the white banner competition the past few TdVs) hence making the activity seem artificial since it has generally been agreed upon that the activity problem is mainly attributed to getting new members to actually stick around which the TdV more times than not isn't helping. Since it discourages a lot of people to post and generally avoid the forum I'd argue it hurts activity more than it helps it.

My main problem is with the fact that the competition is set up in such a way so it encourages quantity over quality, not just talking about the Blue Jersey but really all of the jerseys to explain where I'm coming from.

Blue Jersey

It's the most obvious example, and while a simple enough idea on paper basically translates to "see who can make the most spammy posts" this is from my experience how most members go about it, making short posts with barely any thought put into them, replying to threads they don't really have any interest in or to offer input but just to boost their post count and score points. I don't think that's a healthy attitude to have on any forum considering the purpose is to have actual discussion about various things.

Yellow Jersey

Word padding. People add uneccessary words to their posts/reviews/walkthroughs etc. Which really makes reading their posts a pain but helps to increase their word count for the day. It's kind of a harsh thing to ban for as well since one could argue it simply has to do with the person's writing style (which it's usually pretty obvious isn't the case) so I think the problem is with how the jersey really is set up in the first place.

Green Jersey

To start with, this jersey is near impossible to actually be won by anyone who is elite or below, even more so anyone who isn't trusted so it's even set up so to as discourage activity. Even so I can make the same point here. You get the most actions for doing things that reward little CP but can be done multiple times such as adding screenshots. This is again at the expense of quality however. People do things like adding screenshots of each individual character's stat in a screen things and taking nearly identical screenshots, things which I'm pretty sure no one is looking seeing several nearly identical screenshots and what's more people people often to do this while barely even bothering to play the game. In most cases again not really helping out the site all that much.

Red Jersey

The CP multipliers makes it very hard for new members to win this since they're counted in the TdV and it essentially expects you to earn 10000 cp in the first few days of the competition to have a chance of winning overall. Going past that it's the same deal here again, the whole word padding to make reviews longer affects your CP as well, meaning some people will get more CP when the actual quality of something is worse and most people aren't going to want to sit through a bloated review like that because they're not fun to read. Or people make guides of things that doesn't require you to actually play the game but is info that can be found through a Google search hence being guides no one is really going to use and that again doesn't help the site but they still get Viz and CP for. The red jersey can really be tied into the problems I have with all the other jerseys.

Overall

Overall the base concept of the TdV is something I can get behind. A site wide competition that is a tradition and encourages activity but it isn't really doing that with how it makes it near impossible for a regular member to win and with how it is now strongly encouraging quantity over quality and with how a lot of members in general have started disliking it which is evident through this poll (which is something I was already aware of even before then) it just is doing more harm to the site than it is good I feel. Splitting the community.

As someone who types relatively long and (hopefully) meaningful posts most of the time and still was able to get over 60 posts yesterday considering (and clocking out with three hours left, as well), which was good enough for second place for blue (I knew zander would beat me since I went to bed early but I believed!), I don't think the spamming for post count has been as bad lately. However, I also know that this is only my second TdV that I've been a part of. I don't know the history of it like most people who have replied to this thread.

I try to post throughout even non-TdV times, but it's also natural for someone to try harder for something when there's a prize on the line. That's just the natural competitor in people acting up. It's bound to happen.

I personally enjoy the TdV a lot, as someone who tends to want to say a lot. As Eirinn said, bumping any open thread isn't actually against the rules, and I enjoy the ability to sometimes look back at old posts and threads with a potentially different view than you had when it was first active. A lot of threads here can open up new conversation if renewed, so it's very refreshing to me.

I also enjoy that I sometimes actually get notifications that aren't "Visiting Vizzed." I like the activity an awful lot.

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In response to Zlinq, I do agree that the Blue Jersey suffers plenty from post quality reduction in some situations, but again, I tout a pretty high word average, and I'm not exactly making attempts to pad my posts with words, still coming close to the yellow jersey most of the time, and even winning it for today despite having been active for less time than I normally am able to be active for. I'm sometimes guilty of spelling acronyms out, yes, but that's the difference of two or three words.

I completely agree with the Red Jersey, though. The way CP multipliers are, I'm surprised I managed a fifth-place finish yesterday as a non-trusted member.

I also never understood where the Green Jersey was ever going. That was the only Jersey that I truly couldn't get behind. Most "Actions" in a day? What use is a Jersey like that going to do? It seems like this was made to spam screenshots with.

SWTerra : It's not like any of the jerseys can't be won without doing any of the things I mentioned, I should know since I have competed myself and won the summer TdV last year out of which yellow was my second most won jersey. It would just mean extra work which unfortunately a lot of people aren't willing to do simply based on principle which means it still hurts things in the long run. That's why I am glad when I see members who seem to actually be trying to contribute and who isn't one of the regular staff members winning.

But yeah in the case of green/red it's still pretty much impossible on a day with normal activity for anyone elite and below to win them. Hence why I would like to see CP multipliers not count, as well as trusted+ restricted actions and limits.

To clear something up for you since you're a bit new as in not having been around for that long and probably don't know about this, the green jersey was originally for how many posts you could make in the span of an hour, which I'm sure you could imagine basically encourages pure spam which is why it was eventually changed. The decision to make it most actions was likely to make the competition a bit less posting centered and more contributing to the site in general.

Zlinqx : Ah, that does make a lot more sense. It certainly was an improvement for the Green Jersey, that's for sure, but there should still probably be some thought as to what it should become, because it's clear that there's still improvement needed for that one.

That would actually be a really solid fix to the Red Jersey, by the way. Just limiting the CP multipliers would give me a much better chance at it, lol.

SWTerra : I've suggested that before, along with making trusted+ actions and actions that go past the regular member limit  not count for green which I think could fix the core problem with how the competition is unfair to members based on rank for both of those jerseys. I've still to actually hear much on that though. But yeah if a better idea could be thought of for a non posting jersey that doesn't bring those problems from the start it might be worth considering as a replacement for green in stead.

Zlinqx : for the blue jersey I partially agree. However, at least for the forums I post in, I do not seem to see an increase in spam, except maybe in the review section where some posts barely qualify. And the most spammy posts usually come from newbies or banned members "recovering".

For the yellow, I admit detaching my words (do not instead of don't). However I do not find that it makes much of a difference. My best guess would be that these uncontracted words make at most 5 to 10 percent of the whole post, especially for reviews.

I share your frustration for green. Until music appeared on this website it was nearly impossible for me to qualify for even ranking in the daily top 5. However, while it may indeed be skewed towards "easy" actions I believe, on the contrary, that it adds to the quality of the website. I rate many reviews daily in order to sort out the bad (100 words type) from the good.

The red multiplier can be frustrating, especially if you can not "compete" for it, but I think it is still well-balanced