Competitions

but you could have the events dept split in two
forum events
client events
instead of having a whole different department for both

Quote:

Originally Posted by sex

but you could have the events dept split in two
forum events
client events
instead of having a whole different department for both

then its the same thing, only its not forum events as its competitions

^^ That could then just be re-named the Community Department all together then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grig

Community Department

Now why does that sound like a particularly familiar failure :P

Well I remember when I was comp staff. I actually suggested doing little games now and then, like a dice game, anagram, first to post, yano quick fun little games. But the idea got rejected because they dont want to give out big prizes for such easy competitions, I suggested maybe rep or small furnis but ah well.

Another things is, the staff find it hard to find a certain date, time to collect the prize & some people just forget and lets not forget that staff are busy, and with the drop-in-room feature gone, its extremely hard.

But yeah, I know from experience that comps where you have to write quite alot, or if its just a generally boring & easy one, dont go down that well.

Back to my dice game idea, it was like the first 10 to post get their names written down in the order that they posted. Then, the host submits their names into a dice roller like here (theres a gamblers box roller aswell) & the winners get picked there! I think departments should merge and be called the Entertainment Department lol

I still don't see how merging them will help ...
If anything it will put more pressure on the managers and increase work load.

the manger was right
im the only one who thinks the competitions are boring

Quote:

Originally Posted by sex

the manger was right
im the only one who thinks the competitions are boring

Well its 0-15, quite clear u are the only one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sex

Last time i made a thread telling competitions to improve their quality of competitions etc and they said they would but they didnt so i don't even know why I'm bothering make this lol.

Lets start of with your wonderful world cup event. Im just gonna re-post what i said in the other thread.

I count 64 names there of people who entered.

http://rbguides.com/screenshots/5e8e7b30.png
http://rbguides.com/screenshots/d9d3c28c.png

Now lets look and see who entered these super fun competitions :rolleyes:
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=650163 - 13/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=649957 - 8/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=645190 - 10/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=650170 - 17/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=649380 - 20/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=649514 - 21/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=649580 - 16/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=645163 - 16/64
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=650343 - 7/64

Less than a third of people didn't enter the competitions. That isn't very good. I got the answer "we didn't expect most of the people to enter" sorry but what a load of ********, people wouldn't have put their names down if they didn't wanna take part, i entered the first competition and i even remember comments in the thread asking where they serious. I didn't bother entering the rest because they all looked depressing and boring as hell.

The images you use for the competitions. Seriously they are tacky as hell, i mentioned this five months ago and the manager says they are still working on it? lol, very efficient. It takes the same amount of time to go to http://habboemotion.com/ and get an habbo related image or http://habbofansite.net/fontgen/ and make a nice header for their competitions, but that would probably ruin their tacky boring image and they wouldn't want that.

Most of the competitions are also boring, hence why less than a third of people entered the world cup competitions. I was told by ex-staff that they dont like simple competitions like guess the lyrics, anagrams, hiding images around the forum and making people find them, mixing up celeb faces and making people guess them. Instead there are hundreds and hundreds of boring ones like "the history of the world cup" and "which food best describes you" seriouly, these things belong in the general category not the competition forum.

The manager says im the only person who thinks all these things are wrong with competitions and that the competitions are not boring. So can you vote in the poll and tell me what you think of the things i've talked about and the suggestions i've made.

Obviously competitions staff can't vote in the poll

You posted a thread in December, we listened, we changed:

- 40 competitions a month rather than 10
- Shorter, 5 minutes competitions rather than 'essays'
- More frequent (two a day)
- Shorter waiting time. 5 days rather than a month
- Removing colour from competitions (feedback suggested it was impossible to see most of the colours except red and... blue I think)
- Rep prizes
- Less 'technical' competitions, including removing the terms and conditions to a stickied thread (which was your idea).
- Pictures on competitions (another of your ideas).

All of these were suggested in the December thread and it's insulting to everyone who worked hard to change it that you think we didn't listen.

As for the HxWC, it recieved 538 entries compared to the previous month's 270, so I see no justification for calling it a failure. It's not a load of ******** because people drop off the radar constantly. Right now, there might be people applying for Habbox Big Brother who won't be here by the time applications close. Oli will be able to weed out the inactive people but we couldn't do that with this, so we didn't expect everyone to enter, so I think it's silly to say 2/3 didn't enter comps because they're crap, there may be other reasons that meant they didn't enter. 13 teams got goals, that means at least one of their teammates would have had to enter, 14 teams didn't. That's just under half, not under 1/3.

You didn't suggest any sites to me and I was unaware of these sites so I just assumed you meant get the graphics department to make them. Now we have these, it'll be easier. All you suggested was iaza, which we have used before.

I don't know what ex-staff you've been talking to but I do like these competitions. For example, here's the latest anagrams competition: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=649857 which was this month. As for the 'which food best describes you' competition, it was posted by a trialist and you can't expect perfection from them straight away. They learn as they go on. That competition still recieved 20 entries and the threads are popular in General Discussion so I see no reason to not continue with this. They do well.

I didn't say you're the only person who thinks this, please go and find where. I did tell you that I don't really think you'd be happy regardless of what we did. I tell it how I see it, I'm honest and actually have the guts to tell you what I really think, you may not agree with what I think and you're entitled to that but 'well that was hardly successful' was hardly constructive criticism. It's a shame because when you PMed me all those months ago, you were a friendly person. At least here, you're giving me something to work with and we will listen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saurav

I joined the competitions department to bring more competitions like the ones you stated, i.e. word searches, fill up a jar with 2p coins and get people to guess how much money was in there, anagrams and just general simple ones. Its because I agree with you that I hate - and I have said this before - long boring ones. Quizzes are not bad either as long as they aren't super hard.

The competitions staff have to make their own images and the guide unfortunately doesn't tell them any links you have put in your post, which is a big shame as after looking at HabboFansite.net, its awesome.

I have voted no in your poll.

I should remind you out of all the competitions you did it was the 'Funniest Memory' that recieved the most entries, which could have easily turned into a 'long boring one.' We've done anagrams and we have done a 'guess the number of sweets' but admittedly, we could do more of these as I think we only did it once, we've done quizzes. Competitions have been simplified hugely from December.

I didn't have these links. If they have been mentioned, I must have missed them as I only remember iaza.com being mentioned, which doesn't really help us create images, just change them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lNaughtynemo

God no they're boring. They target one type of 'market' as it were, in that they only ask the same type of question. Rather boring after the first...one. I'd like to see competitions for stuff like design a logo for blahblah, stuff that actual gets people being creative. There's many talented pixel artists on this website, and those who dabble in photoshop and other designing programs. Of course, that would also limit it, so yeh, have a mix of competitions like the ones you lot mentioned.

Also, correct me if im wrong here, but i reckon VIP should be used more as a competition prize, aswell as furni. I for one couldn't give a damn about reputation seeing as hardly anyone cares much about it anymore, and i would be more likely to enter if VIP was a prize.

We did do graphics competitions but the entries for these were slipping so I stopped doing them. However, in feedback surveys, a common thing that popped up was team competitions (which is why we did Habbox World Cup) and graphics competitions, so we'll bring them back. We didn't really use forum prizes that much so that may change things and appeal more to the 'graphics forum' community more.

As for VIP, Saurav is right, we're limited to 8 months of VIP a month. It was 6 when I arrived and I asked nvr to boost it up to 8. They recently tried to bring it down to 7 but I told them that people liked VIP (it was mentioned a lot in our feedback surveys as well) so they kept it at 8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saurav

I remember a few years ago when there were LOTS and LOTS of "design an avatar" or "design a signature" competition. A member would contact a member of competitions staff, give them the prize (a few HCs) and the staff would post the competition saying "Design an avatar for Saurav. The prize is 3 HCs".

That is no longer the case.

And finally, three of the four competitions posted have to be "Habbox Comps" competition, where the entry has to be sent via PM rather than posted in the thread itself - which limits the types of competitions they can do really.

See above to find why this is no longer the case.
Actually, that guide needs updating as feedback surveys suggest people actually prefer the more creative (graphics, writing etc) competitions (like Grig has mentioned throughout the thread) so we're looking for a balance between creative and 'one-answer' competitions

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingJesus

Same manager who said that "next month" there would be big changes for about 6 months, and then the big change was just more of the same.

See near the top of this post for the changes we made in January. It changed the department completely.

Well that's entirely stupid seeing as how that's the sort people actually enter lol, rather than ones where you have to force yourself to take enough interest in a really boring topic to write an essay on it.

lol it is entirely stupid and that's why I've never said I don't like these type of competitions. It's actually more worrying that the staff think this, I must be giving out the wrong messages.

Same manager who thinks I'm the only person who reckons events and comps could easily be merged. tbh if the simpler competitions are used then the workload can be shared around all the community departments if events don't want the full extra workload - DJs already do competitions anyway and it's not like it really takes a genius to lift a thread out of the "comp ideas" forum and post it publicly.

I've never said you're the only person. If the workload was shared around all the community departments, I would agree that comps and community could be merged but not just comps + events. I also think there's a lot of work involved that would make a merge complicated. Moving threads is easy but contacting winners, giving them their prizes (which is a lot harder now thanks to Habbo changing things). I spoke to some EOs about it and they said they wouldn't like to merge. Whether they said that because that's what they thought I wanted to hear rather than because they agreed with what they were saying is a different story altogether.

That explains a lot haha..

I didn't know of any sites, having no experience of graphics myself. I assumed he meant to get the Graphics Department to make them but now I know of these simple sites, it'll be a lot easier to improve the images.

Photoshop's for noobs who can't use Paint :P but yeah I agree with this, the last graphic-type comp I saw was ages ago for some banner which I'm pretty sure I still haven't seen, but yeah if there were more pixely comps (and not just Habbo related, some freestyle would be nice) then it'd get people working a bit harder, show off some skills around the forum and who knows might even validate the need for a comps team.

We're going to do more of these. I stopped them because they didn't recieve many entries. I don't remember what competition you're refering to though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grig

They should be.

Also, I was told by a former competitions manager Joeyk. that he agreed when thinking these one answered competitions using the HabboxComps account are very boring, and have the creativity of a slug. I have always voiced my disatisfaction on such comps, maybe cause I'm an oldie and when I worked there in 2007 got used to that style of competitions, but I still share that view. :)

We're working on a balance between the 'oldie' more creative competitions and the modern need for 'one-answer' competitions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sex

http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=602060

The department is so bad lol
Look, the havent even paid people their prizes from novemeber

Giving out prizes is no longer as simple as dropping prizes into a donation room. If it was, that list would all be green, I'm sure. In November, there was no AGM for Community as Catszy was ill and Jin isn't always the fastest. Then Roxy came in December/January and decided to do the prizes herself (to avoid having to get them from someone to pass to her to get her to pass to me) and she decided to stick with the more recent winners rather than the November ones. Now, she's passed this back onto me recently so I'm going through it as quickly as possible. I'm not a robot, it's a lot more difficult than it looks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saurav

Stop firing people who want to give members the competitions they want! :P ahaha

Would be good too see their responses.

I'm replying as quick as I can argh :p

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingJesus

That's horrific lol, it's not even like all of those unpaid people are inactive

See above for why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sex

can i just add that it seems stupid that the manager edis EVERY thread putting in the prize himself.... cant there be a fixed prize for every comp like a 2 hc and 30rep or 1months vip and a hc

I edit every thread to check for grammar too. I do the prizes because there are things like the VIP quota to consider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garion

Did no one see my logo competition :'(! But yeah I agree that graphics competitions would be good. It could also integrate the graphics department with the rest of the forum too which is something that has been highlighted in the past.

extra suggested this when he was manager but never got round to it. In the management meeting, I was going to suggest it. I still will!

I am not quite sure what is going on there, I gave the Comps Dept. 70HCs the other day to give prizes and that doesn't look like it will go far given that so many people are unpaid. I think the issue is that when you only have one (maybe two) people issuing prizes it becomes very difficult to keep on top of things. It is then difficult ensuring that both manager and winner are online at the same time and then the complicated trading process has to be observed. Gone are the days when donations could be dropped into a room and this makes it incredibly difficult to hand out prizes. Perhaps the Competitions Management can expand on how this system works but I think we would see a marked improvement if the task of giving out prizes, while remaining the responsibility of the Competitions Manager, might also be delegated to another trusted individual (Comps Dept or other) who is on Habbo regularly and can therefore give out prizes far easier. Another possibility is to have a set time, each week, where competitions are handed out. Say every Monday at 7PM. Having a set time and place on Habbo would make it easier for everyone, I think, but this is perhaps something that people will want to feed back on before it is implemented.

70 HCs will go far and we're slowly doing it. I did suggest a 'HabboxComps' account on Habbo so that anyone with access to it could give out prizes whenever they could but this was shot down due to security reasons, which was fair enough, I suppose. The idea of a prize giving time is a good idea.

I do think that competitions needs to be looked at and certain things, such as "one word" competitions need to be reviewed and revamped if necessary. The thing I've never particularly liked about competitions is the fact it's restricted to the one forum and you just see thread after thread. It needs to be spiced up and spread about the forum and Habbox.com itself so it appeals to a wider audience. I do know that efforts have been made to broaden the audience though - a tab added to the forum and an option to view competitions on Habbox.com and other forms of advertisement too.

We could also look at upping the VIP and Rep limits the department is permitted but we're only willing to do that if the department offers competitions that attract a larger and wider audience.

Why was it recently attempted to decrease it? There isn't a rep limit atm and I don't think there should be one either.

It is all very well and good to criticise but I feel I should also highlight that Competitions Management have worked very hard recently to reform the department and post more competitions. Whilst we're not there yet, they have made a lot of positive changes and the department has definitely improved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattGarner

Looking at the dates. Wasn't that at time when there wasn't like a strong General Management team? Might of been issues trying to get furni around and what not back then. Although I've forgotten when them problems were around!

Edit: All the recent ones = red. Habbo have made it harder for departments to give nay furni to people, you can no longer drop them in donations rooms. It is also a pin trying to organise times and what not when both people are online together.

Extremely difficult so we will ask for feedback over what times/days we should do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lNaughtynemo

Just an addon to the idea, where the prizes are given out the following monday at 7pm from the competition ending. If the competitions ends on a monday, then it will be the next monday (one week). If you miss it, then you don't get your prize, if you give the staff x hours notice then you can arrange it for the next week.

That way, it's only the participants fault if they dont get their prize. I hope i explained it well enough

There has been the idea that if after a certain date your prize hasn't been given out then it'd be considered a donation to Habbox Competitions but as Habbo have made it difficult to trade prizes, I removed it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grig

Yeh I say go back to the older comps threads, in the comps have ended forum and take some of those elements used in the past. It's not always about quantity I don't think. For me, quality matters and that's why I enjoyed taking part in comps back then compared to now.

I like the idea about there being a designated day and time for giving prizes on Habbo, it would cause less hassle for both manager and winners alike.

I agree it's not about quantity. However, it was suggested in December that we needed more competitions so we did. We will obviously look at all feedback and take it on board if it's constructive otherwise we have nothing to work with.

Thanks for all your feedback. :)