I feel like the rejectionator is going to have its work cut out for it.
Man what a turnout, haha. So…I know these derbies are for cash-monies and it may not be in people’s best interest to vote for other designs, but considering there are over 120 designs and currently the design outside of the fog has only 9 votes it doesn’t seem like people are really supporting or viewing other designs. I thought this was a community, we should be supporting each other.
i voted. but i’m not in this week. but i usually vote anyway for a few faves anyway.
glad i didn’t work on anything this week, the competition is high
I know there are artists that do, but the numbers just don’t add up. Especially in a derby like this one with such a big turnout. I know you can submit designs even if you can’t vote but I can guarantee that at least 70% of the people that submit have bought something from woot and can therefore vote. When derbies have been smaller I guess it benefits artists to not vote for others since you can win with very few votes now. In this case though, there are so many entries and seeing that 9 votes is the fog barrier but there are 120+ designs makes this look like it’s not really a community of artists supporting each other. People spend time and effort on their stuff and ignoring them or pretending to care or vote is a slap in the face to everyone.
I’m not pointing fingers at anyone, but the evidence is there and it’s pretty disappointing to see woot become this.
In fact, I don’t think votes should be anonymous at all. I think everyone has the right to know if “randomwooter1” votes for the same artists week in and week out. It can’t be that hard to show who voted, kind of like the way Facebook lists the people that like a post.
but that’s also a lot of shirts for votes to spread over. if there are 120+ shirts with an average of say 5 votes per shirt, that’s over 500 votes. i myself am not done voting yet. first round i vote for the ones that catch my eye right away. throughout the week i’ll look through more carefully.
True, but the ones outside of the fog would be the “better” designs and would more likely garner a greater percentage of the average votes people hand out and would still put them higher than the votes they currently have based on the number of entries.
i think on todays theme, there is pretty good quality all across the board so i can see the votes being more spread out and not pooled at the top 20 shirts.
edit: or maybe not. participation seems to be in line with what it has been lately.
The quality is definitely high for this derby. Monday derby winners usually end with around 160 votes and I don’t think it’ll be much different even with so many entires. I still think transparency is needed, knowing who votes for what would go a long way.
I always figured people voted for things they liked regardless of who they were from or because they have a design in the competition. But honestly, I’m not sure that’s the case.
Oh well I guess, I participate because I really enjoy doing this. I’m not as good as a lot of the artists here so I don’t think I’m being sour about my votes because I don’t think I’d win regardless. It’s just a bummer to see.
People also work during the day. Sometimes I can sneak off to submit an entry but won’t have time to look through other designs until later. i vote for the designs I like unless we are close in competition.
Yup, I submit, take a quick look and vote for anything that stands out, then come back later to take a better look around.
Plus sooo many entries is kinda daunting, which means top vote getters get more looks and votes and stuff near the bottom will tend to languish, deserving or not…
agreed. that’s why i start by looking from the bottom up in case a good design got overlooked. the thumbnails are also hard thing to get around sometimes. you can’t expect everyone to click on 100+ entries to view the full design.
I have to kind of agree. Participating has been really fun, but it can be disheartening to put a lot of work into a design (or more than one) and see very little response – even from the community itself. When I participate as an entrant, I always try to vote and comment on other entries – not for the sake of exposure but because I’ve committed to that particular derby. If I’ve found the time to design, then I feel like I should find the time to support the other artists.
Haven’t gotten to comment today, though, due to staying up all night designing and passing out sooner after submitting. -
But, yeah. I got a positive comment on one of my designs today from a fellow artist, but I can be 100% sure that he/she didn’t vote due to the fact that both my votes were accounted for – me and my brother. I’m not even competition as I’m nowhere near the fog. It took me a little aback. If I like it and would wear it, I vote – even if it’s right next to my design in votes.
I’d be more interested – in terms of transparency – to see the statistics of users that buy the designs they vote for. But, either way, I’m really not sore; regardless of whether they print, I got three rad designs that I like looking at out of it. -:]
[EDIT]: Oh, crumb, just for clarification: it was not fishbiscuit! It was before he commented. - Fishbiscuit is the man.
I don’t think it has to do with work though. I submit, vote, and check randomly throughout the week. It seems to me that the vote spread would still be pretty different considering the number of entries if artists were supporting other designs they like. It’s not the first time I noticed this, it just really stood out this time. So I would like to see transparency in voting.
I agree, there are a lot of designs at times but sifting through thumbnails doesn’t take that long. Artists to a pretty good job of luring you in with their thumbnails and sometimes a thumbnail alone is enough to get a vote. If people don’t have time to do it at the moment they can come back to it, but again, the votes still don’t make sense with the amount of participation.
I’m glad you do that, a lot of times some of the designs I like the most are lingering in the lower ranks because they don’t have the following of some of the heavy hitters. I don’t think anyone expects people to click and view every entry, but I imagine that’s why woot has a vote button above the thumbnail itself. If a thumbnail doesn’t sell you but was enough to catch your attention, you can always look at it later. I don’t really know anyone from here personally, so I don’t know what anyone is like. I just get the sense that there are some cool people on here that vote for fellow artists and then some that don’t. Unfortunately I feel that the ones that don’t support outnumber the others.
I’m glad someone understands what I’m saying. See and that’s exactly my point, I’ve had instances where I’ve received positive feedback but no vote as well. I’m not just going crazy, haha. I don’t see any reason why we can’t see who votes, if you like it enough to vote then you shouldn’t care if people know that you did. You can still keep the fog a mystery by hiding the names and votes again until they fall out of the fog. It wouldn’t change a thing other than everyone knowing who votes for who.
I think being concerned that artists aren’t voting for enough misses the real issue- there aren’t enough voters showing up.
In the past, Woot derbies attracted a lot of people who didn’t enter artwork but liked to vote for shirts they enjoyed or wanted to buy. For whatever reason, that really doesn’t happen as much these days. But until Woot finds a way to bring them back (maybe by incentivizing their participation in some way), low vote counts will continue.
And as far as positive comments not leading to votes is concerned, that’s not necessarily indicative of any problem in the system or any nefarious/competitive intent by anyone. Some people only vote for what they would buy, but are happy to comment on anything that they think is new, different, interesting, or promising in some way. Not everyone sees a vote as just a “like” indicator, it does say “I’d want one” after all 
Actually, they did incentivize recently when they offered a coupon code to anyone who voted in the derby. Votes jumped by the hundreds; I wish I could recall wish derby it was so I could link it, but it was significant. The vote count fell back immediately after.
It’s not indicative of a problem, per se, but I still feel that it’s something worthy of a small bit of criticism. I feel like artists SHOULD be the ones voting the most because they, of all people, understand the value of a vote. At the end of the day, if you get a lot of positive feedback and no shift in your vote numbers, it throws into question whether the feedback was genuine or whether it was just a means of people bolstering their own image and exposure; I can say this because, in the past (when I first started submitting years ago), I was kind of a butt and did just that before I realized it felt dishonest. And, yes, the link does say, “I’d want one”, but it doesn’t say, “I’m pre-ordering one”. Boiling the site down to only voting for designs you intend to buy – I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; in fact, sometimes I wish it was a pre-order system to weed out artists who print based upon a loyal fan following alone but don’t actually sell as many t-shirts as promised by their votes. But, as the site exists now, it shifts the community focus away from artistic support and camaraderie and towards a more business-oriented mentality, and I think people struggle with the fact that Shirt.Woot constantly straddles between the two.
Anyway, I can’t say I know what’s best for Shirt.Woot because I’m at odds with it myself. Do I come here for artistic feedback and to be amongst creative people, and to support those people in kind? Or do I come here to make money? A little of both? Which is more important?