FA+
Shop
The Unending Popularity Contest of The Eternal High School
12 years ago
"Spam To Win" journal contests & Excessive 'reminders'
-OR-
The Unending Popularity Contest of The Eternal High School That Is Society At Large.
"Spam to Win"
I am in favor of getting rid of Spam To Win type contests. I've only ever entered a handful of these because I feel it's doing a disservice to my watchers to clog up their in boxes with a junk journal and it also makes any future postings by me more likely to be given less interest if I were to be known for posting useless journals of that sort frequently.
Furthermore I feel it's fairly dishonest of the original poster to demand watches in return for a chance at some prize. Regardless of the community - fandom, business, hobby, etc - names hold currency. Eyeballs hold currency. The internet is full of people who are utterly desperate to be noticed. Many employ their personal talents in an attempt to get noticed: They draw, write, perform music, create silly videos, or otherwise incentivize others to become part of their wider social circle via personally produced works.
When someone attempts to subvert the system via financial means it's generally noticed and these folks are then looked down upon in various ways depending on how they went about their attempt to buy popularity. When it's a straight up cash offering (which we assume to be fair and legitimate) many express disbelief and some even go as far as to run smear campaigns. Another common tactic to buy popularity which is largely a furry-only pursuit, is to commission massive amounts of art featuring their character/fursona and is typically repetitive in theme with little meaning to anything. It can be thought of as similar to psychological warfare involving dropping tremendous amounts of leaflets over your target audience. Attempts to buy popularity can be seen in many other places in life such as the way someone dresses, the amount of parties they throw, and similar such acts.
However I caution you, Gentle Reader, to not take such a cynical path as to assume that all such events which bare similarity to these are a crass attempt at gaining your favor. Merely be mindful that attention given is a precious commodity.
"YCH/Auction Reminders"
I am much less approving of this new rule than the previous one. To quote the text of the rule:
"Reposting the same image, or a modified variants of the same image, is NOT PERMITTED. If you want to post a reminder, you can do so in the description of a new submission with a unique and new image (NOT a repost or variant of the original) or via journal to your watchers."
While well intentioned, this is poorly thought through. I do not see any discernible difference between spamming picture submissions and spamming journal submissions. All this does is encourage the holders of these YCH or Auction sales to instead post a daily reminder journal. Alternately, a junk sketch could be made every day and be well within the guidelines provided.
Putting aside the idea of perhaps making a custom interface for auctions with built in reminders, the most productive choice for the least effort would be to simply limit these 'reminders' to 1 or perhaps 2 additional notifications.
-OR-
The Unending Popularity Contest of The Eternal High School That Is Society At Large.
"Spam to Win"
I am in favor of getting rid of Spam To Win type contests. I've only ever entered a handful of these because I feel it's doing a disservice to my watchers to clog up their in boxes with a junk journal and it also makes any future postings by me more likely to be given less interest if I were to be known for posting useless journals of that sort frequently.
Furthermore I feel it's fairly dishonest of the original poster to demand watches in return for a chance at some prize. Regardless of the community - fandom, business, hobby, etc - names hold currency. Eyeballs hold currency. The internet is full of people who are utterly desperate to be noticed. Many employ their personal talents in an attempt to get noticed: They draw, write, perform music, create silly videos, or otherwise incentivize others to become part of their wider social circle via personally produced works.
When someone attempts to subvert the system via financial means it's generally noticed and these folks are then looked down upon in various ways depending on how they went about their attempt to buy popularity. When it's a straight up cash offering (which we assume to be fair and legitimate) many express disbelief and some even go as far as to run smear campaigns. Another common tactic to buy popularity which is largely a furry-only pursuit, is to commission massive amounts of art featuring their character/fursona and is typically repetitive in theme with little meaning to anything. It can be thought of as similar to psychological warfare involving dropping tremendous amounts of leaflets over your target audience. Attempts to buy popularity can be seen in many other places in life such as the way someone dresses, the amount of parties they throw, and similar such acts.
However I caution you, Gentle Reader, to not take such a cynical path as to assume that all such events which bare similarity to these are a crass attempt at gaining your favor. Merely be mindful that attention given is a precious commodity.
"YCH/Auction Reminders"
I am much less approving of this new rule than the previous one. To quote the text of the rule:
"Reposting the same image, or a modified variants of the same image, is NOT PERMITTED. If you want to post a reminder, you can do so in the description of a new submission with a unique and new image (NOT a repost or variant of the original) or via journal to your watchers."
While well intentioned, this is poorly thought through. I do not see any discernible difference between spamming picture submissions and spamming journal submissions. All this does is encourage the holders of these YCH or Auction sales to instead post a daily reminder journal. Alternately, a junk sketch could be made every day and be well within the guidelines provided.
Putting aside the idea of perhaps making a custom interface for auctions with built in reminders, the most productive choice for the least effort would be to simply limit these 'reminders' to 1 or perhaps 2 additional notifications.
Summer
~summer
I'm also in favor of ending the "pimp to enter" contests. I was always torn about entering them, and like you did so at a minimum with the same misgivings. Over the last week those went WAAAYYY waayy overboard with everyone and their moms entering a "win cash" raffle. It had gotten to the point where my habit was just immediately nuke all journals and then get on to browsing though the artwork of the people I watch. Good riddance.
