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Best of 2019 - Feedback Booth.......
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With the Best of 2019 complete. I wanted to open up to some feedback. 

This year CAF increased the Best of entries by 70% by incorporating feedback from last year. Adding the two new features, ability to move items already uploaded in your CAF and  adding "Next" and "Previous" for navigating thru entries. Please post your feedback on how posting entries and voting was for you and the pain points. 

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From previous feedback over the years and looking at what has been posted to the Best of. I have a few ideas for changing "Best of" for 2020.

I wanted to address the categories especially Other which has become a dumping ground for what can not fit into other categories.

Alot of Other is non-comic art like movie posters, book illustrations and Trading Card/Gaming art. After some thought, I think its best to break out comic book art into specific categories and also give non-comic book art their own categories not just "Other". This year we had 7 categories and I want to reorganize them and add three more. Here is what I propose and why:

 

1) Published/Unpublished Comic Book Covers (intended for publication)

        This would include all artwork both published and unpublished artwork. Even unpublished covers where the artist redraws the cover and the content is different from the published cover. 


2) Published/Unpublished Comic Book Splashes, Title Pages (Part of a Story)

        Only change from the previous year is this will ONLY include single panel or pages at the start of a story (original definition of splash page). It was only be artwork that is part of a story, no stand alone pin-ups. 


3) Published/Unpublished Comic Book Pin-Ups, Illustrations, Trading Card Art, Advertisements, Posters, Prints, Character Designs

        All art in here would be single images but not part of a comic book story. Artwork would be single images and comic book related which would include: Pin-ups, Illustrations, Trading Card Art, Advertisements, Posters, Prints, Character Designs. 


4) Published/Unpublished Interior Panel Pages

        Only change. To include multiple panel advertisements like Marvel Hostess ads.


5) Published/Unpublished Strip Art

        No Change.


6) Published/Unpublished Commissions/Recreations (work artist completed outside of conventions)

        No Change.


7) Unpublished Sketch Covers/Convention Sketches (artwork completed at conventions)

        No Change.


8) Published/Unpublished Non-Comic Covers, Pin-ups, Illustrations, Gaming Art, Advertisements, Posters, Prints

        Here would be a place to include paperback covers, illustrations along with gaming and trading cards art (non-comic) plus original art done for posters/prints. Many would be single images and I do not think covers for non-comic art items would need its own category.


9) Published/Unpublished Media artwork: Music & Movie Poster, Storyboards, Movie/TV Promotional Material

        Move Music and Movie poster artwork from "Other" but include storyboards plus Television and Movie promotional material


10) Published/Unpublished Other (All material which doesn’t fall into the other 6 categories (Rough Drawings, Prelims, Color Guides, Animation))

        I think with the addition of the other three categories it helped clean up this one. Most of the major types of artwork have been filtered into the above groups. The "Other" would be down to minor rough drawings, prelims, color guides and animation. The value of these would not be great.

 

 

***One other idea, I have received alot of feedback about breaking artwork down by values. While I think that can open up a big can of worms if you did various value tiers "Under $500", "$501-$1000", $101-2500" ect I could see doing just one.

Change "Other" into "Published/Unpublished Budget Artwork (<$500)" which people could put in their covers, panels pages, splash pages into this category if they paid under $500 (ignoring shipping and taxes). We could also include Other categories "Rough Drawings, Prelims, Color Guides, Animation" since most will be under $500. People can still ignore the Budget category and post in Cover, Splash or Panel Page.

***10) Published/Unpublished Budget Artwork (All material  under $500)

 

 

 

 

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Brian- this was my first year participating and I think overall it was fantastic! Voting was a bit clunky - I wonder if it is possible to add numbering system as you go through the entries- maybe just a box where you can put a 1-5 as you go through so you can note your favorites then resort your finalists. I found myself struggling to go back and find what I wanted to vote for as some had very similar titles. 

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Imo too many categories make it clunky and more of a chore to look through and try and vote. 

 

I would think that the goal would be to engage users to participate in submitting and voting.  Seems like the submission part worked - just now need them to vote as well.   

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22 minutes ago, eewwnuk said:

Imo too many categories make it clunky and more of a chore to look through and try and vote. 

 

I would think that the goal would be to engage users to participate in submitting and voting.  Seems like the submission part worked - just now need them to vote as well.   

But with the categories getting over 200 if we can cut size of some down people might be inclined to vote in them. Since we got fewer voters than those who entered. Percentage of those who entered and voted might be even smaller, not sure how many voted and didn't enter. The Other was becoming a dumping ground.

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Was nice to be able to scroll using next and previous,  but load times were too long and no way to denote the page you'd like to vote for without having to then pull out and then find in drop down. 

 

Need to figure out a way to allow 5 pages to be selected and edited within current view without all the clunky back and forth. 

Ideally should be able to drag and drop an image and rather than have the names/ descriptions should show a thumbnail image. 

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Two main thoughts:


1. I feel the categories can get pretty confusing due to how varied original art can be. I saw several pieces where I wasn’t sure why it was in a particular category. 
 

2. Voting was really tedious - both in terms of viewing the pieces and actually voting for them. 
 

Some thoughts on solutions:

Allow everyone to submit any 5 pieces they want which were added to CAF that year. Once the entry window is closed, create an embedded slideshow of all the entered pieces. Let voters scroll through the slideshow and upvote any number of pieces they want. Allow voters to change their upvotes at any time until voting closes. Once voting closes, use the art type field on submissions to sort by category. If the field is empty, sort to other.  
 

Doing it this way makes both the voting and submission a lot more streamlined. It should also make the voting a lot more exciting as pieces will receive many more votes this way. Voters won’t feel like they have to choose between a Frazetta and a neat piece of modern art they like since they can now vote for both. The Frazetta’s probably still going to win but now the voter feels good because they gave more positive feedback and the submitter feels good because they received more positive feedback. 
 

You also retain categories with theoretically less overall work (to be fair, probably more work for Bill and less for users). It also lets you compare pieces across categories. So you can still have best voted interior, strip art, etc. But now you also have a top 5 overall, which could be anything.

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40 minutes ago, J.Sid said:

Could be just me, but is there a way to see what my own votes were AFTER they were finalized?  

(I had a couple that I was on the fence with and I don't remember which way I ended up voting)

Sorry no way to find out

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Categories-  Throw them all away and use what CAF already has you pick when you upload art:

1772018968_ScreenShot2020-01-21at1_21_00AM.png.bc2029ac59303b95a405a97a77af201e.png

Published or Unpublished 

2131792822_ScreenShot2020-01-21at1_21_18AM.png.ece4b5f81255f78f40113363a33dd64b.png

 

EVERYTHING in CAF is already sitting in the database with these attributes, this is far less work for Bill AND the users, All the user has to do is pick their top 5 of 2019, period, No more trying to decide which category it fits in.  The site is already set up to track all the art by type (interior page, splash page, cover etc) the only other flag needed is published/unpublished, which EVERY piece on CAF already has.

to narrow down some of the "categories" to vote on, then it's just a matter of whitelisting the ones to be included, (published interior page) or blacklisting the ones to exclude (published sketch card, for instance)  

In terms of voting- the user can be presented with a menu to filter what they want to see or vote on: Interior Panel pages:Published and just click on the ones they want to vote on, of if still needing to use a drop down, for the LOVE OF GOD set the entries alphabetically and not by the order they were uploaded, which is why it was so hard to vote. You couldn't use typeahead this way because "B" was everywhere in the list sequence.

any suggestion to improve should take into account how the data is currently structured and leverage that in a way that takes advantage it rather than create new DB relationships. In reality Bill could run a SQL query and tell us without even voting what the stats are for all art of a given type entered in 2019 based on view, likes, and comments. There's a mountain of data in CAF that could be presented in novel or interesting ways that haven't even been thought of it using only the existing data model.

 

rantrant

Edited by MYNAMEISLEGION
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23 minutes ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

Categories-  Throw them all away and use what CAF already has you pick when you upload art:

1772018968_ScreenShot2020-01-21at1_21_00AM.png.bc2029ac59303b95a405a97a77af201e.png

Published or Unpublished 

2131792822_ScreenShot2020-01-21at1_21_18AM.png.ece4b5f81255f78f40113363a33dd64b.png

 

EVERYTHING in CAF is already sitting in the database with these attributes, this is far less work for Bill AND the users, All the user has to do is pick their top 5 of 2019, period, No more trying to decide which category it fits in.  The site is already set up to track all the art by type (interior page, splash page, cover etc) the only other flag needed is published/unpublished, which EVERY piece on CAF already has.

to narrow down some of the "categories" to vote on, then it's just a matter of whitelisting the ones to be included, (published interior page) or blacklisting the ones to exclude (published sketch card, for instance)  

In terms of voting- the user can be presented with a menu to filter what they want to see or vote on: Interior Panel pages:Published and just click on the ones they want to vote on, of if still needing to use a drop down, for the LOVE OF GOD set the entries alphabetically and not by the order they were uploaded, which is why it was so hard to vote. You couldn't use typeahead this way because "B" was everywhere in the list sequence.

any suggestion to improve should take into account how the data is currently structured and leverage that in a way that takes advantage it rather than create new DB relationships. In reality Bill could run a SQL query and tell us without even voting what the stats are for all art of a given type entered in 2019 based on view, likes, and comments. There's a mountain of data in CAF that could be presented in novel or interesting ways that haven't even been thought of it using only the existing data model.

 

rantrant

First CAF currently does NOT have all the categories listed. No mention on Gaming, Music or Movie Poster, prints character designs. Too much would fall into Other. I agree we can clean it up and add new Categories in CAF

Big issue is collectors are too lazy during the year. I see so many CAF pieces in wrong category, many just leave the default "interior page". If we used your method we would have to remind people to double check what category they originally selected for each of their 5 entries. And would would be too lazy to doubel check. At least with the current method people MUST select the category before entering them in the Best of. I could ask Bill to change it so the default is blank and adding a piece to CAF would require selecting a category.

Yes there is an issue if people select one of the three shown when all categories are listed. They show the latest upload piece. That is an issue if you select one of those then select the next button. It will not bring you to the next to last pieces uploaded but the next piece in the list broken down by collectors alphabetically. If you choose the last piece uploaded it could be for collector Mr T and if you selected the next button on each successive pieces you would miss viewing most of the entries in that category. Something that needs to be address for next year. 

Do not understand what you mean by "In terms of voting- the user can be presented with a menu to filter what they want to see or vote on: "  Currently you can easily select which category you want to vote on by selecting it in the Best of list.

Yes I agree using the dats which is there in CAF would make it better , but issue is the data may not be correct.

 

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Would it be possible to increase the size of each thumbnail image?  I suspect most people, myself included, don't actually click onto the full image of each and every entry unless:

a.  They're familiar with the art and it's stuff they usually like.

b.  It looks potentially interesting.

A lot of great art might be getting overlooked because it's too time-consuming to look at each and every piece in detail.

My other observation is that, as previously noted, there were fewer voters on the day of voting in relation to the number of individual submissions.  There also seemed to be only a handful of people actually listing their voting choices on these CGC threads in comparison to past years of this contest being run?  

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49 minutes ago, Brian Peck said:

First CAF currently does NOT have all the categories listed. No mention on Gaming, Music or Movie Poster, prints character designs. Too much would fall into Other. I agree we can clean it up and add new Categories in CAF

Big issue is collectors are too lazy during the year. I see so many CAF pieces in wrong category, many just leave the default "interior page". If we used your method we would have to remind people to double check what category they originally selected for each of their 5 entries. And would would be too lazy to doubel check. At least with the current method people MUST select the category before entering them in the Best of. I could ask Bill to change it so the default is blank and adding a piece to CAF would require selecting a category.

Yes there is an issue if people select one of the three shown when all categories are listed. They show the latest upload piece. That is an issue if you select one of those then select the next button. It will not bring you to the next to last pieces uploaded but the next piece in the list broken down by collectors alphabetically. If you choose the last piece uploaded it could be for collector Mr T and if you selected the next button on each successive pieces you would miss viewing most of the entries in that category. Something that needs to be address for next year. 

Do not understand what you mean by "In terms of voting- the user can be presented with a menu to filter what they want to see or vote on: "  Currently you can easily select which category you want to vote on by selecting it in the Best of list.

Yes I agree using the dats which is there in CAF would make it better , but issue is the data may not be correct.

 

That's what I mean- you can exclude the marginal or nonsensical published/unpublished and type combinations- that's easy.

The user would still enter their top 5 in the category they wish to participate in, but it would be a pretty easy to verify that the piece they have selected matched the type it's entered in. Then you can't have an improperly attributed page (unpublished interior page) entered int he Published title Page category, and vice versa. It would prompt the user to correct things they properly attribute wen they first uploaded it.

On choosing or voting: I'm assuming the current tech doesn't support in-frame modals, so if selecting from a picklist is the only option, the data can be listed alphabetically, regardless of the order they were entered.  That way all of Brian Pecks entries appear at the top of the list even if you didn't upload until the second week of making entries and and if you type in a B, you jump to all the B's, not just the first B and can more easily find the item in the list.  This is a one line change in the code most likely. It would have helped tremendously, 

On voting: I just meant that you could let the the user filter the categories to go to that page (Published; Interior, versus Unpublished: Sketchcover) must that's just me trying to educe the amount of scrolling to see all the potential categories for entry or voting. On the coding side- Ideally you leverage the same mechanism for both.

I feel that when viewing the art, that if all the entries were thumbnails, and not broken down by who uploaded on it's own line, then you could reduce the amount of scrolling by 50% and get all those thumbnails 3 across- just add the name of the owner to the bottom.

I also think it should display the artist like a normal CAF entry, the Best of does not, which prompts users to write unnecessarily long descriptions to communicate that. Just use the normal thumbnails and descriptions in a CAF gallery.  Again, leverage what you have rather than create new stuff.

AND- since it all just data- add a summary on the Premium dashboard of all your votes- make this a value-added option to increase Premium membership. Let the unwashed masses take screenshots of their votes....:devil:

 

Edited by MYNAMEISLEGION
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4 minutes ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

That's what I mean- you can exclude the marginal or nonsensical published/unpublished and type combinations- that's easy.

The user would still enter their top 5 in the category they wish to participate in, but it wheels be a pretty easy to verify that the piece they have selected matched the type it's entered in. Then you can't have an improperly attributed page (unpublished interior page) entered int he Published title Page category, and vice versa. It would prompt the user to correct things they properly attribute wen they first uploaded it.

On choosing or voting: I'm assuming the current tech doesn't support in-frame modals, so if selecting from a picklist is the only option, the data can be listed alphabetically, regardless of the order they were entered.  That way all of Brian Pecks entries appear at the top of the list even if you didn't upload until the second week of making entries and and if you type in a B, you jump to all the B's, not just the first B and can more easily find the item in the list.  This is a one line change in the code most likely. It would have helped tremendously, 

On voting: I just meant that you could let the the user filter the categories to go to that page (Published; Interior, versus Unpublished: Sketchcover) must that's just me trying to educe the amount of scrolling to see all the potential categories for entry or voting. On the coding side- Ideally you leverage the same mechanism for both.

I feel that when viewing the art, that if all the entries were thumbnails, and not broken down by who uploaded on it's own line, then you could reduce the amount of scrolling by 50% and get all those thumbnails 3 across- just add the name of the owner to the bottom.

I also think it should display the artist like a normal CAF entry, the Best of does not, which prompts users to write unnecessarily long descriptions to communicate that. Just use the normal thumbnails and descriptions in a CAF gallery.  Again, leverage what you have rather than create new stuff.

I do not want to use thumbnails, people are sharing what art they acquired in the past year and thumbnails just do not show enough detail. I want voters to see in detail what they are voting on. I know it was slower looking thru all entries in a category. Loading time can be an issue. Bill could remove all the extra stuff  like ads, buttons and other graphics that load every time you goto the next entry. 

Then create a slideshow of sorts. Black background with just the Title, CAF owner, artists and the image with white arrows on either side. That would drop the amount of data being loaded each time. He could also add a "Nominate" button, so when you look thru all the entries you can select as many as you want to nominate for your 5 votes. Then scroll down and press the Select button below the image . It would reload and show those pieces nominated, just like selecting pieces to enter in Best of. From that nominate list you select 5 which pop to the top, when you are sure that those are the 5 you want, select "Vote" button

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17 hours ago, Brian Peck said:

But with the categories getting over 200 if we can cut size of some down people might be inclined to vote in them. Since we got fewer voters than those who entered. Percentage of those who entered and voted might be even smaller, not sure how many voted and didn't enter. The Other was becoming a dumping ground.

yeah i dont think that there were too many categories, and that adding one or two to help better define each category would be helpful. 

... my feedback on the voting process is: I think it would make things easier if i could click a button as i was going piece by piece to have that piece added to a list. and then when i'm done going through the category I'll have a short list of all the pieces I ear marked. And then i would want the ability to wittle, and / or re-order the list from there... i.e. if i picked more than five to begin with, or if 1st pick vs 5th pick actually matters for scoring. 

that way I dont have to do so much scrolling around or backing in and out of the piece links themselves etc. 

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Any criticism below given in a very grateful spirit that you all put so much time and work into this! I LOVE the CAF Best Of!

As I said in the other thread, you really need to toss the "only 5 votes" thing. It's never going to work if your goal is to encourage more voting. We are in the Instagram age... View the piece, click Like (or don't), click to the next one, repeat. You can "vote" as many times as you like. The results get tallied on the back end and split up into however many categories were presented to the owner submitting the piece. The work isn't in the clicking Like. It's in trying to order your selects down to five pieces. That's the fail here.

That's also why having Other be a dumping ground is not a big deal. Because the main body of voters are interested in Covers, Splashes, and Panel Pages, you want to keep those as clean as possible.

I also think you need to remove the word Unpublished from Covers, Splashes, and Panel pages. Again, it's just going to muddy up those categories.

Looking through Other, there were only 124 entries... much less than some of the main categories. So I think you are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. I think most people are OK with Other being "everything else". I think the only thing you could do would be to break that up into two parts - Published and Unpublished. That would separate out the commercial illustrations (animation, house ads, movie, game).

Otherwise, I think the existing categories are pretty clear and make sense.

 

 

 

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