I’d like to see a perma-ban on politics… We are all different and I thought we were all to celebrate diversity. This site was once pretty apolitical. A few snarky shirts sold well; but should that mean that this should becaome another hateful haven? I think that should be saved for facebook and twitter, not woot. I don’t know if, at this stage, woot wants to actively engage in things that will encourage more to leave… Just my two cents.
No arguments from me. Sure, Wooters will still be offended over something, but it’s one less thing, at least.
Do you know how hard it is to find cat pics on the internet?!?
They just aren’t that common or cool… This is where it’s at>>>
On the topic of the Rejectionator, how strict is it? If something is out of the printable area, but otherwise a “good” design, does it get a pass? Or will the mighty hammer fall?
I ask because new folks should understand the rule, but it should also be caught early per my comments above.
I think the rules are there for a reason, and no matter how new/good/established/whatever the artist is, should be subject to the rules and subsequent DQ if in violation of them.
We all used to have such wonderfully spirited debates on whether or not a shirt was on topic or not. I think if derbies will continue, they need to commit resources to properly moderating the derbies.
I haven’t been coming around as much as I did years ago, but as soon as I stopped reading the blogs weekly I found I was missing out on new small rules that would be introduced, not mentioned again, and yet enforced. Like, just for example, some subject matter being totally banned, or when the requirement was introduced for needing to show halftone close-ups on the mockup if your work looked like it had gradients. When rules like that just get mentioned in one blog post and aren’t collectively listed anywhere it gets really hard for artists who aren’t here every week, or artists who are brand new to Woot. I think some of them were scared off when they’d get rejected for breaking some rule buried months ago in the blog.
Now like I said, I haven’t been around as much (partly because getting back in with this minefield of unknown rules was intimidating) so I don’t know if this has already been addressed in the present. But if there’s still little rules like that which only the regulars know to remember, those rules need to be listed clearly or tossed.
…Also, the derby page should have the time zone listed on the derby schedule.
I want to second having the designs all be in the fog for a day. Some designs really do get left in the dust and its frustrating for a lot of artists to work so hard and have them buried at the bottom with little hope. I’ve seen this happen to a lot of great designs.
I would also love to have the Woot team be the ones to select the top 3. You could still have 9 in the fog, but I feel like once you get in the fog its probably best if the Woot team selected the designs THEY think would sell best. I mean in the end this is about sales. Just my 2 cents.
For a while, second place was an editor’s choice and third place a guest editor’s choice.
Though it yielded some designs that wouldn’t have printed otherwise, overall it didn’t work out so well.
As I have unquit the derby I suppose I have a reason to comment again. Some initial thoughts (was going to make a list but I wrote a bunch about just one thing):
Re: Voters. I don’t think we should close the voting off again. It comes at a cost, but all decisions do. Woot’s audience, and specifically the voting audience, isn’t nearly what it once was. Having derbies decided by 30 votes is just as much of a popularity contest because the people with the biggest following on woot (specifically) have the advantage.
The truth is, these sorts of contests have always been popularity contests to a degree. It’s human nature, and to some degree it’s beneficial to woot to have popular artists bring in fresh customers. Obviously conversion is low among fans, but not non-existent.
If it were possible on the backend, I’d suggest doing what Threadless did, which was weighting votes based on user interaction, and what not. If somebody shows up only to vote for one person every week and never buys anything their vote still counts, but a lot less. This could serve as a way to get more people involved without giving any fanbase too much power. It might be an undertaking at woot HQ to reconfigure that though so who knows.
Also, I love the the idea of fogging everything for at least the first day of voting. I’d also suggest randomizing the rest of the submissions on every refresh by default. Give everyone some time at the top to get noticed.
I hated the threadless system. It was so fraught with down-voters and corruption. Then they would just arbitrarily pick winners. I’m surprised that they still exist.
I’m not sure you’re too familiar with how Threadless worked, but part of the reason they would pick lower scored designs is because they had weighted data to look it and see who was up/down voting, and if they were likely to buy. Also, some scores would average higher, but not get many 5’s, so while the scores looked good, they weren’t actually generating any strong interest.
To be clear though, I’m not suggesting woot use Threadless’s voting and picking system. I’m simply saying that a weighted system can provide more accurate results when looking to translate votes to genuine interest in the design as a product.
When they launched their “storefront” It was a huge disappointment to me. It was completely disconnected from their main site. It was fine for those who had their own large social network platform, in which to hock their wears. But small fish like me would not even get a nibble. I think I sold 1 thing and it was to my aunt, and they screwed up the order…
I get more sales through Teepublic, with virtually no networking. Woot still does me the best.
I understood little about threadless (in general) and I think they change the scoring system several times over the years to combat fraud. It wasn’t always they way that your are stating it, ste7enl. Or if it was, there was a long time that the users of the site were completely unaware; judging by the old threads on threadless on the subject.
I personally like the users only voting. Just as you state having 30 people deciding on a shirt is popularity contest, the exact same argument can be made by a designer that has a huge following on a non-design based website. They can win derbies by having their fans rush over and vote. To me, that is even less fair; and it is happening.
Adding my thoughts:
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Having the rules somewhere prominent on the main derby page would be a big help. Enforcing the rules consistently would be helpful too.
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I like text designs. They sell well and make great wearable t-shirts. If the end goal is to sell shirts, don’t ban text. Designs should be relatable to the audience and wearable. If the end goal is to have an art contest, then that’s a different story.
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I understand allowing anyone to vote given the shrinking audience, but it’s really easy for someone with a huge following to win. It can be discouraging to newer artists and artists without a large social media presence.
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I know I’m repeating this request, can Woot please change derby EC prints to F contracts so we can sell them in our stores. There aren’t enough sales on most ECs to justify an exclusive contract. I’d love to be able to offer them to a wider audience.
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That’s all I can think of for now. Thank you for all you do to communicate with artists and for giving us this awesome place for our creativity!
Does anyone at woot know why we had a “no text” rule for YEARS? I see both sides of the discussion, but I would love to better understand why this was a standing rule for so long. Maybe it would put the current discussion into a better context?
I always thought it was to promote more “art” designs. Maybe they thought text designs were too easy. They’re not necessarily easy. It’s harder to make simple designs that are graphically precise. That’s just my opinion. Plus they sell better in my experience. I’m more likely to wear a text design than something artsy.
Agree on the more difficult part, when done right. Not if done wrong…IMHO. I always wondered if it was harder to police “similar shirt” when it’s text only. Like how close does something text only need to be? Same quote? Same idea? Same font?
I would like to know that too. I could take any popular phrase and make it my own. Is that ok?
Just chiming in again to clarify/discuss my stance regarding derby rules.
Regarding the “no text” discussion, what I’d like to see is a mixture of restrictions in any given derby. Personally, I’d like to see “no text” or “no text only” be a restriction just once out of every 3 or 4 derbies or so, just to mix things up a bit. Same with other restrictions like “no cats, no pop-culture, no Star Wars etc.” I think just mixing it up a bit with various rules (but not all the time, or all at once) might make the derbies more challenging in a fun way.
With voting, I think letting only people who have made a Woot purchase vote is fair since they’re our target audience.
I have to ask, what is this mysterious F contract that Fishbiscuit mentioned, and what would the payment terms be compared to both the exclusive and less-exclusive D contracts?
One of the most obvious is World Nom-Ination, which was just the most blatant of scads of lightly-to-heavily-borrowed work printed (and copious pieces rejected) by the submitter and their cohort.
But without dredging up the past, and arguably the present, I’ve always been absolutely baffled that Woot didn’t have some sort of “Three Strikes” rule on this sort of thing. It’s easy to imagine one person making occasional mistakes. It’s impossible to trend one person getting regularly rejected for work that is either deeply thematically similar or deeply compositionally similar or regularly employing copyrighted stock content, and not think “maybe we shouldn’t let this person compete.”
It’s nice to see woot changes so little that this suggestion got mentioned and then mostly ignored.
I’d also argue that this sort of thing should be retroactive. If you, say, live-trace the first image-search result of broccoli, but still get residuals for other work you’ve done…
I’ve not really got a dog in this race. I haven’t been around in years and may not stick around again much longer. But that seems like a suggestion that should be 100% non-controversial.