Hey there everyone! We hope that you all are having fun with building your rooms for the Haunted House Competition. Since we are trying to be more transparent with our guests, we have decided to show you all just how the judging system works for judging the competitions.
Judging a competition is a process that usually takes about a week or more to go through because there is so much that has to be done before and after in order to be as thorough and fair as it possibly can be. Many methods have been attempted over the years, but this is the one that we feel works the best.
The first thing that we do is go through a clone checking process that is usually handled by more than one staff member. These staff members will communicate with each other so that they have more than one opinion on if a guest's account is a clone or not. When a clone is found, they will be marked down as a clone via a google sheet. This is a process that usually takes about one to two days to do since most of the staff are in different time zones.
Next, we start the process of placing flags in guest rooms and taking pictures of the guest rooms. The list of guests who have signed up for the competition is divided among the staff so that this process can go as quick as possible. The pictures that get taken will be the ones that get used during the initial voting process. Pictures of the winning rooms will also be these pictures. These pictures are taken with the flag in them to show that the room has been judged.
After we have finished clone checking, placing flags, and taking pictures, the judging process then starts and lasts for a series of rounds. All of these are absolutely anonymous and only the picture of the room and the room description, if there is a room description, is shown. The judging takes place through a google sheet and each staff voter has a column with their name in it. Staff members are expected to vote in their respective column and put an X in the row of a guests room that they think should move on to the next round and keep in mind the categories that we will be placing the winners into. At the end of each round, the votes are tallied up and the guests that have received the most X's next to their names will move on to the next round.
For the first round, how many people move on to the next round is usually half the players that sign-up for the competition. This is just to help us pinpoint our absolute favorites out of the many guests that sign-up. So if we receive one-hundred guests for sign-up, then fifty guests will move on to the next round. The second round is where we pick our top eighteen favorites that will be the winners announced on the newsletter. Finally, the third round is where we pick the top three while keeping in mind what categories that we are putting them into. If there is a tie during this round, we have a fourth round to break the tie and continue to do tiebreaker rounds until we have our top three. Once we have determined the top three grand prize winners, we put them in the categories we feel fit them the best and do the same with the remaining fifteen first prize winners. This process can take up to three to four days because of the different time zones of all the staff members. We usually give about twenty-four hours per round to vote.
When the voting is done and the winners have been chosen, we get everything ready to be announced on the newsletter. This means we edit the pictures to have the MyVMK Logo on them and set up all the stuff on the newsletter. This is when we will announce the prizes as well.
Our designers are expected to have the prizes done and designed the day after clone check begins, which is two days after the sign-up for the competition ends. This is to ensure that our uploaders have ample time to be able to upload the prizes before the final day of the voting process. Prizes will be rewarded to winners within twenty-four hours after the winners have been announced!
Also, some of you have been asking if a Haunted Room/Spooky Room is okay. Just to clarify and clear this up, a Haunted Room/Spooky Room is absolutely okay!
All the staff members hope this helps give some light on how we do the judging in the fairest way possible. Thanks for reading!
Judging a competition is a process that usually takes about a week or more to go through because there is so much that has to be done before and after in order to be as thorough and fair as it possibly can be. Many methods have been attempted over the years, but this is the one that we feel works the best.
The first thing that we do is go through a clone checking process that is usually handled by more than one staff member. These staff members will communicate with each other so that they have more than one opinion on if a guest's account is a clone or not. When a clone is found, they will be marked down as a clone via a google sheet. This is a process that usually takes about one to two days to do since most of the staff are in different time zones.
Next, we start the process of placing flags in guest rooms and taking pictures of the guest rooms. The list of guests who have signed up for the competition is divided among the staff so that this process can go as quick as possible. The pictures that get taken will be the ones that get used during the initial voting process. Pictures of the winning rooms will also be these pictures. These pictures are taken with the flag in them to show that the room has been judged.
After we have finished clone checking, placing flags, and taking pictures, the judging process then starts and lasts for a series of rounds. All of these are absolutely anonymous and only the picture of the room and the room description, if there is a room description, is shown. The judging takes place through a google sheet and each staff voter has a column with their name in it. Staff members are expected to vote in their respective column and put an X in the row of a guests room that they think should move on to the next round and keep in mind the categories that we will be placing the winners into. At the end of each round, the votes are tallied up and the guests that have received the most X's next to their names will move on to the next round.
For the first round, how many people move on to the next round is usually half the players that sign-up for the competition. This is just to help us pinpoint our absolute favorites out of the many guests that sign-up. So if we receive one-hundred guests for sign-up, then fifty guests will move on to the next round. The second round is where we pick our top eighteen favorites that will be the winners announced on the newsletter. Finally, the third round is where we pick the top three while keeping in mind what categories that we are putting them into. If there is a tie during this round, we have a fourth round to break the tie and continue to do tiebreaker rounds until we have our top three. Once we have determined the top three grand prize winners, we put them in the categories we feel fit them the best and do the same with the remaining fifteen first prize winners. This process can take up to three to four days because of the different time zones of all the staff members. We usually give about twenty-four hours per round to vote.
When the voting is done and the winners have been chosen, we get everything ready to be announced on the newsletter. This means we edit the pictures to have the MyVMK Logo on them and set up all the stuff on the newsletter. This is when we will announce the prizes as well.
Our designers are expected to have the prizes done and designed the day after clone check begins, which is two days after the sign-up for the competition ends. This is to ensure that our uploaders have ample time to be able to upload the prizes before the final day of the voting process. Prizes will be rewarded to winners within twenty-four hours after the winners have been announced!
Also, some of you have been asking if a Haunted Room/Spooky Room is okay. Just to clarify and clear this up, a Haunted Room/Spooky Room is absolutely okay!
All the staff members hope this helps give some light on how we do the judging in the fairest way possible. Thanks for reading!