KittCatS! Halloween Custom Collar Contest - results!

[Illuminatra Resident]

(11-03-2017 09:48 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  But that's just it. The truth is public voting or no, your entry had no change of winning a prize. Period. Your best possible showing was, given the public voting, 4th Place.

You came in no better than 6th Place in the judging. Had there been no public input, that's the best you could have hoped for.

Had the public voting gone a bit different, I suppose it's possible you'd have come in 3rd Place. But it is impossible for you to have ever come in 1st or 2nd without changing the scoring to nothing more than a popularity contest. If it were that, you'd probably still have not won because someone would have "gamed" the system.

Tad, look at the result numbers. Do you see how Jhanelle and Kathy had a public vote of 7?

Okay let's do the math shall we. Based on Callie's formula here is what SHOULD have happened.

There were 9 entrants. That means the top possible public vote score would be 9.

The #1 publicly voted collar = 9 + 1 vote from judges assuming that the judges only gave you 1 vote. That = 10 points.

If we look at 3rd place their total points equaled to 8. So that means we are missing the #1 public voted collar in the judging.

I am WELL aware of the fact that my collar may have come in 4th place. I'm aware of that. But shouldn't the #1 publicly voted collar have come in 3rd with a total of 10 points? That is what many of us have questions about. That is why this thread is so long.

[Tad Carlucci]

No. I see one had 6 and the other 7. Perhaps there was a typo in the OP which has been corrected.

But, OK, I see where you're coming from.

Could you have placed First or Second Place? No. Not possible.

Should you have been the SOLE Third Place winner, No. Not possible.

Is it possible that KittyCatS made an error and you should have been in a three-way tie for Third Place? Yes: if we assume a three-way tie is allowed.

But, since we're dealing with assumptions here, we simply need assume the rule "No more than two entrants in may share a tie," and you're stuck at no better than Fourth Place.

So, OK, it's up to KittyCatS to say if they made a mistake and you should have shared in Third Place, or if they forgot to mention that no more than two entrants may share a prize.

The easiest path is to say no more than two may share a prize and be done with the entire subject.

[Coverboytoy Resident]

The math doesn't add up period! That's the whole point. If you ask for the public to vote to help boost your votes and based on the formula Calle posted, it the numbers don't add up. SO the bottom line is the 2 highest public votes were disqualified/excluded from the next round. Even if the panel of judges didn't vote for the 2 most highest votes, they would have been placed as the top 3 because that's how Calle determined the scoring system.

To end this conversation, contests moving forward should not ask the public for any more votes because this is the end result = everyone is not happy. Let the judges determine the winners moving forward!

Put yourself in the top 2 voted shoes, if this happened to you, you would also be questioning the voting process and wanting answers. But I guess you would step down and call it day. YEAH RIGHT! You would be angry and confused too.

[Tad Carlucci]

The fallacy is assuming the scores for public voting are added to the scores for the judges BEFORE sorting.

FIRST you sort by the judges score ALONE.

THEN you segment the data set into First, Second and Third place using the total of judges + public to determine if there should be shared prizes due to higher scores.

You do NOT sort by the public + judge total score.

As I said, the problem isn't the results. The problem is they published some data without a full explanation of the algorithm.

What is upsetting to me is there seems to be some expectation that this should have been a popularity contest, first, and a judged competition, second.

Sure, they can state they didn't stand around and solicit votes. And I'll accept that. But if they popular votes was to have the weight y'all expect, overriding the judges, then someone ELSE would have gamed it and they'd still be complaining. Not that it was somehow "unfair" because the public vote was not the determining factor, but that it was "unfair" because cheaters took over.

KittyCatS has a fair system for this sort of contest. They may have forgotten to fully explain the scoring system, or they may have made a mistake in failing to share Third Place.

It was clear from the initial call for entrants that the popular vote would not be the sole determining factor. Guess what, it wasn't. So stop complaining it wasn't.

[Eleanor8 Resident]

Um, well... Thanks for the mansplaining Tad.

With all due respect, we know, and I very much suspect you know too, that you are making this up.

The actual processes Callie described and the rules that Kitten stated are simple – community vote is ranked 9 – 1 from highest public vote to lowest (9 contestants), ditto panel votes. Add together = final score. The highest score wins. This process has been confirmed both in responses by Callie in this thread and by Kitten in IM – the community and panel votes carry a 50/50 weighting.

There are two grounds for disqualification stated in the rules 1) Contestants who solicit for community votes or TP in people for the purpose of voting for their collar will be disqualified from the contest. And 2) all submitted work must be original and not infringe on the intellectual property of anyone else.

There is no mention anywhere about the issue of tied scores. And I know from experience in other Kittycats events they take a generous approach to this – the tie is counted as a joint first place (or whatever) and then the next score down is counted as second and so on. There is no (unstated or whatever) limit on the number who can tie for a place – if the scores are the same then they all occupy that place.

I think the rules and way of calculating the scores are perfectly well understood by all the entrants and the wider community. The problem would seem to be communication, or to be exact, the lack of communication. It’s obvious from the numerical results that the two entrants with the highest placed community votes aren’t among the published winners. And numerically there is no way they wouldn’t have been there if their results had been included (even assuming they took the lowest two panel vote positions and therefore scored 1 or 2 from the panel vote) you would have those two entrants with scores of either 9 +1 or 9 + 2 or 8 + 1 or 8 + 2 so, you would have scores of 11 or 10 or 9 – all of which are above the 8 points needed for the current third place.

Therefore the only conclusion is that they have been disqualified. This is within the rules – if the organisers suspect they have breached point 1) or 2) above. However, it would be the decent thing to at least tell the entrants this has happened – awkward conversation maybe – but just to omit them isn’t right.

This would appear to be what has caused the upset not the fact that they didn’t ‘win’.

This situation has happened before and as far as I’m aware the individuals concerned have just walked away from Kittycats contests or Kittycats altogether. That really isn’t a good result for anyone. Far better to find a solution to this. I think it’s good to involve the community but if giving the panel vote greater weight is needed so be it.

[Coverboytoy Resident]

(11-03-2017 02:54 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  The fallacy is assuming the scores for public voting are added to the scores for the judges BEFORE sorting.

FIRST you sort by the judges score ALONE.

THEN you segment the data set into First, Second and Third place using the total of judges + public to determine if there should be shared prizes due to higher scores.

You do NOT sort by the public + judge total score.

As I said, the problem isn't the results. The problem is they published some data without a full explanation of the algorithm.

What is upsetting to me is there seems to be some expectation that this should have been a popularity contest, first, and a judged competition, second.

Sure, they can state they didn't stand around and solicit votes. And I'll accept that. But if they popular votes was to have the weight y'all expect, overriding the judges, then someone ELSE would have gamed it and they'd still be complaining. Not that it was somehow "unfair" because the public vote was not the determining factor, but that it was "unfair" because cheaters took over.

KittyCatS has a fair system for this sort of contest. They may have forgotten to fully explain the scoring system, or they may have made a mistake in failing to share Third Place.

It was clear from the initial call for entrants that the popular vote would not be the sole determining factor. Guess what, it wasn't. So stop complaining it wasn't.

LMAO you are not explaining facts you are explaining your own perspective which is ad-hoc contrary to what Calle has posted on this thread. How many times have we have to direct you to Calle's post! Calle already explained the scoring system, yet you still comment that it's a fair justification. If it is, then please have KittyCats explain further so the Community can understand the logic.

The exclusion of the 2 top scores seemed as if they were excluded or did not pass the next round for the judges panels. If this is not the case, THEN the Community would like to hear the reason to why the top 2 were not included in the end.

As Eleanor stated, and agree with her that there needs to be a better solution for future contests because it's going to deter from people participating in future events.

[Tad Carlucci]

If you read on, my mistakes were pointed out, and I saw and admitted them.

Here is my position: yes, KittyCats appears to have made an error. Either they mistakenly failed to share the third-place prize with the top vote-getters or they mistakenly failed to state a rule limiting the number of entrants which can share a prize. These are the only two possibilities which fit the data presented.

In their position, especially given the amount of bellyaching in this thread, I'd simply state the rule that no more than two entrants may share a prize and then the results would be correct as posted in the OP.

Whichever error they made in the posted results, the real error was posting the numbers at all. They should have simply named the winners and nothing more.

--

ETA. On further thinking:

Nah, there is a third possibility and that is the top two public vote-getters performed so poorly in the judging that the results are correct and the only error was posting a partial dataset.

9 + 6 = 15 Kathy0831
8 + 7 = 15 Jhanelle Bonde

7 + 5 = 12 999ShadowCat999

6 + 2 = 8 Lixy Byron
5 + 3 = 8 Trixie Ravinelli

4 + 1 = 5 4th place
3 + 4 = 7 4th place
2 + 8 = 10 Top public vote 4th place
1 + 9 = 10 Top public vote 4th place

So there is at least one solution to the dataset which does not need any rule changes or changes in the OP results.

[Priestess Firanelli]

I am not very good at math. I have to admit that but I am not ashamed to ask questiones when I do not understand and to me that is what this forum is about. A channel to more knowledge.

We happen to know that Mady had 9 public points and Illume 8. We also can see that the panel vote numbers that are left out are the 4 at the bottom. Could this not mean that for ex Illume could have had either 8+1, 8+2, 8+3 or 8+4? Lets say she ended up with 8+4= 12. Would that not have placed her on a shared second place with Shadowcat IF Mady for ex. ended with 9+1 or 9+2? I guess we dont know exactly where they would have ended up on the panel list because the list is not complete but to ME it looks like that we do know that Mady would have ended up with anything between 10 and 13 points and Illume would have ended up somewhere between 9 and 12 points and that means in my ex. with Illume, anywhere between second and forth place. Again, if I am completely wrong here, please put me straight KC

I really do not understand your point Tad that KC made a mistake by showing the numbers. Any fair contest should stand for a deeper investigation and if people questioning the process the solution is not to make it harder to check the facts. It would be to explain even further so people understand. If the process include the possibility to be ejected, then it should not be a problem to motivate why, to the people involved.

[Tad Carlucci]

On showing the numbers: the only reasonable choices are full exposition or full confidentiality; either would have prevented this long discussion. Confidentiality avoids more hurt feelings, so that's what I'd go with.

I was thinking that perhaps a full matrix might help some understand better. But that would be a long, Long, LONG post and your eyes would glaze over.

My point is:
1) Assume KittyCatS made no error and the OP results are precisely correct.
2) For the unknown data are there any combinations which fit the OP?
3) I have found at least one. Therefore the thesis an error must have occurred is false.

Is it possible they may an error is the scoring? Sure. But is it possible the OP results are correct and no error was made? Yes. Therefore, arguing an error must have occurred is false.

So, Priestess, yes, there are matrix solutions which would show one or more errors were made in scoring.

But the existence of just one which shows no error is sufficient,

[Illuminatra Resident]

I don’t understand why there seems to be an issue that we are discussing this like adults.

I really do hope that KC responds to this thread. The math that Eleanor has come up with makes sense to me.