2011 Anime Beta Sketch Awards Rules & Info

[zerospace]

I totally agree, iceman! If people are worried about security so much or cheating becomes too tempting for people -- ditch my code, please. I wouldn't be offended in the slightest!

[iceman57]

You saw my coding "skills" about the background issue. I was a coder in the 90s during the HTML / Javascript era, no more today, retired.
But for graphics, I may say that I'm still able to work, so I hope to see my desk renew for the cel contest.

Anyway this affair is extremely interesting in a more sociologic aspect.

[zerospace]

You saw my coding "skills" about the background issue. I was a coder in the 90s during the HTML / Javascript era, no more today, retired.

I decided after the last round of edits to the code that I wasn't going to develop it anymore. It was a fun "let's see if I can do it" kind of project, and I was happy enough with the outcome. I spent many many hours coding that site and I did it just for fun, so after hosting 3 contests, I figured OK, that's enough . The code is old, insecure, and honestly... awful by my current standards. But, I just have no interest in fixing it -- and unlike some devs out there, I'm not afraid to say that. There's a long list of things I should do with it... like perhaps use XML rather than text files for data storage (I purposefully avoided using a database, to permit more people to be able to host it), and of course, plug up some of those holes. If I were truly anal, I'd be storing all of the data in encrypted files (YUCK!). But this was for fun!! Not to kill me with for months and months each year! I didn't sign on for that!

I was allowing others to use it if they wanted, but providing very little support other than the instruction file I wrote 2 years ago. Perhaps it is time for someone else to build something, or for the awards to return to a much more mundane type of site. I don't know. I just totally resent being caught up in this crap this year.

This whole mess has nothing to do with me, other than my site code was used, and I assisted the organizer(s) in attempting to identify the culprit. That's the extent of my involvement. I have no access to the back-end of this year's site, nor do I want it. All I know is what I was told -- how much of it is true, I don't know, nor do I care at this point. This is for cutiebunny, Gabe, and Zetsuai (and anyone else involved in this year's awards) to work out. I'd appreciate being left out -- all I did was try to assist in blocking access to the images in question, along with assist in IP tracing & site security.

So, let's get back to the awards, people. It's what this is about anyways.

[teggacat]

Cutiebunny-you're doing an admirable job overseeing these awards,
the entries are excellent, voting is hard,
ahh hell...whats a little extra drama
The culprits should not be getting center stage,
call 'em out and whip 'em after the awards are over
the main attention should be on all the fabulous artwork presented here,
we can deal with the idiots afterwards, a community vote seems quite fair enough
[thirty lashes should be good...]
jeez people, it's supposed to be a happy little tight community here with two cool awards
a year where we all can enjoy a little more of the art we all love...its really not a cut-throat type of thing,
just dont get whats wrong with some people.......
now i remember why i just view & vote and dont enter

[benten]

After acknowledging that the contest coordinator has the discretion to handle contest infractions as the coordinator sees fit, I would like to state my preference.

I wish that the whole affair had been handled privately and the identities of those involved not be disclosed publicly.

As to the future, I would prefer to see the issue dropped, and no polls run.

By the way, iceman57, your bonus trophy is cute.

[cutiebunny]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Teggacat. Hopefully I haven't fracked up too much

And Zerospace, I wanted to apologize if it sounded like I was blaming you in any way. As I mentioned before, I would have been totally clueless that any shenanigans were occurring without both you and Gabe's help. I'm grateful for the time you spent working on this issue, especially as you didn't sign up to do so.

Benten, to my knowledge, we have had two prior instances of cheating during the awards period in the past. In both instances, the cheaters were publicly named on the board. If I failed to do so, I would have been accused even more so then now of protecting the guilty parties.

I feel that total transparency is necessary for the awards to work. That's why the issue was brought to everyone's attention. If you have any questions, please feel free to address them with me.

I'm sorry that the awards are not perfect, but, I think every year we get closer to making them that much smoother.

[zerospace]

CB -- I didn't think you were blaming me, hon!

What bothered me was that Zetsuai appears to be somewhat blaming me for her actions this year, despite her claims that she informed me of this 3 years ago. Even if she did inform me, and I chose to ignore her information -- does that justify her exploiting it even now? I don't think so.

At worst, I'm guilty of not closing a hole in the site. I'll admit to that -- I didn't fix the biggest hole until 2009. I could fix the image viewing issue, too. I don't want to do that now, because I'd feel compelled to recode the entire site just to bring it up to my current standards. And, right now, I just don't have the time for that.

I wholeheartedly agree with those who say that the awards themselves should be taking center stage right now. Let's move on!!

[JWR]

Well reguardless of the whatever "bugs" or "Loopholes" might be in the coding of the site, I can say that for the normal Beta member such as myself that the site in it's current state is as close to perfect as I have seen for this type of "Fun" event. The amount of time and effort put in shows.

Was uploading the images easy and "User-Friendly" to non computer person like myself? Very much so.

Was the viewing and voting process easily understood and accomplished? Again very much so.

I would hate to think this would be abandoned just cause someone who had a much higher computer IQ than most of the normal members could possible exploit a "loophole" and as such attempt to cheat the system. The fact that this "Loophole" was known to those in charge and it's use detected and punished should hopefully should keep others from attempting to use it in the future.

My 2cts

[zerospace]

Only one more day (ish) left to vote, correct?

[sensei]

I do think that it was a strong contest. None of my entries, despite my attachment to them, seemed to be gimmies for the categories in which I submitted them. And many categories took several views and close comparisons before I reluctantly recorded a vote. "Hanken" and "Outfit" were, I thought, the very most difficult, with several wonderful submissions showing different approaches. I very much liked the numbers of roughs in most of the categories, which are of course less finished than the gengas but often have an immediacy that comes with the moment of creation.

It's an event that I look forward to, as it combines the positive contributions of many forum members in a way that helps hold the community together.

[iceman57]

"Outfit" is undoubtly always an hard part to decide for vote, I think that I'll look for such exciting item in my collection in the coming years.

[ReiTheJelly]

So...voting ends tonight?

[cutiebunny]

Yup..at 11:59pm PST. So..about 12hrs left to cast votes!

[cutiebunny]

Ugh..well, I apologize if this inconvenienced anyone, but, due to a minor case of food poisoning, I'm ending the voting early tonight. Sorry, but, I don't think I can stay up much longer. But the good news is that everyone who entered artwork has voted.

Winners are now viewable on the site, and as soon as I get the graphics from Iceman, I can either post them or send them to your email accounts. There were lots of ties this year, and because of that, lots of members won lots of graphics. Yeah!!

Thanks again to everyone who helped on this project - Gabe, Zerospace, Iceman, and Yupa for your knowledge, translations and for putting up with me And thanks to everyone who offered to help, or whose name I forgot to mention.

But mostly, thanks to everyone who entered and voted in this contest. The awards could not happen without all your hard work.

[Yupa]

Thank you Cutiebunny, Gabe, Zerospace and Iceman!

I didn't expect to get an award, but it seems I got second place in the Animated category. Thanks to everyone who voted for me! This was a great first Sketch Awards for me.