Homebrew Coding Contests - The Hardest Job of All to Judge Fairly ??

[wraggster]

Im sure many of you who follow this site and the many hundreds of sites many of whom have never heard of us and neither have we heard of them have at some stage seen the Homebrew Coding Contests across all platforms and wondered if the judging was fixed or if the wrong entrant won and so on, The Neoflash Contest is maybe a prime example of this, each year there seems to be a lot of should i say disapoinment and disbelief in some the judgings, infact the contest winners and placings tonight have certainly stirred up some debate.

Is there a way to fairly judge, for me the best judge is an impartial coder but for others they may probably choose the public.

When the prizes are so good, recent competitions have seen a massive amount of investment from donators or companies and whilst we all win, any homebrew is great eh :). It makes you wonder what any comp creator can do to ensure a fair comp.

Maybe its an idea to have original releases only ie no ports or taking over of an older project. I know many coders who have become disilluisioned over contests.. So to both the Coders and Members here, What would you do to ensure a fair comp that gives the winner prize to the worthy winner.

personally i see no easy answer, because to truly judge correctly you need to understand every releease and spend hours understanding the release to the full to fully grasp the effort that went in.

I do think that Judging an Homebrew Comp is the hardest job of all and certainly theres going to be many who dont agree with the result

Before i get too much anger about what i said about the Neoflash Comp, im just going by comments read on other forums, ive not tried all the releases so i cant personally judge

Give your verdicts via the comments,

[soulanger]

I find these competitions very generous. Neoflash, isnt that popular when it comes to carts. So they dont profit that much, but even so they pull up this competition each 6 months that helps the community to grow. :|

The only thing thats bothering people is why are there no reviews of why these people got their positions.

Voting system is also controversial. As chances of cheating is high.

Lastly on gbatemp's bounty, the possiblity of cheating is also high. You can get hundreds of your friends to vote for you, then pay their 10$ back after winning. You would lose nothing, but it would ensure your win.

[Sterist]

i think i see wheree the issue is lol

Motion Sensor integration boosts the score regardless of how it´s used, if i remember correctly

=============

i think that someone should create a competition for exsisting and popular apps only. who ever makes the biggest changelog / most lines of code added / combination thereof, wins.

think of the benefits of that could possibly come out of it....

file compressing, flash2 and 3 file management, improved n64 emu, etc etc

those are the top 3 i´m looking forward to ;)

what if dark alex entered the competition.....

[Emulation_Chief]

Hello:

These codes competitions are always a fair trade for the coders and the scene in general. Always the key to win is the judge. I believe, tell me if I'm wrong, most of these contests only have one judge. More critical judges will be a better bet for a more impartial result. A public review is also a good idea, at least, for those who cannot test the coder's creations.

More judges to evaluate the projects will be better critics if all the rules are available to all. I know that some of those competitions has the rules available, but judges and the public specially needs a reminder of the rules in order to conclude on what they can see on a video or during the testing process.

Everyone in the community can add or correct what I stated. I also want to know your opinion.

[mathfacts]

Well...
As a quasi developer who has entered contests, I'll present some thoughts....

You can't compare apples and oranges. IE. If you look at what Dark Alex has created and compare it to minesweep - it's just silly. The competitions often do this.

Any kind of voting system, though fair because everyone can vote, can become biased by individuals taking advantage of the system. Also, since a person can vote without trying the entries, they can merely select the app whose name they like the most.

People who don't code may or may not understand the complexities of the created application.

I think Wraggster is in the ballpark when he talks about an impartial coder, but that leaves the public out completely. Consider a scoring system divided by the differing components that can be judged by the various groups. Something like:

Component.............Value........Judged by.............
-------------------------------------------------------------
Code/Complexity.......25...........Independent Coder
Originality.................30............Competit ion Sponsor
Fun/Usability Factor....30...........Public by vote
Sound........................5...........Public by vote
Graphics.....................5.......... Public by vote
Attention to detail.......5............Competition Sponsor

Now of course these are just some factors, but it shows how no one group can control the results. You can mix and match the “components, value and judged by” to meet your desired goals. After all, the sponsor is after something too!

As a quasi developer, I get my kicks from the feedback of other people who hopefully had some fun with my creation.

These competitions allow the developers to display their "work” to the community for a brief time; enjoy the 15 minutes of fame.

Mathfacts

[wraggster]

i think all comps are great but its very hard to choose the rightful winner

[Sterist]

Well...
You can't compare apples and oranges. IE. If you look at what Dark Alex has created and compare it to minesweep - it's just silly. The competitions often do this.

when you mention DA, were you using him in reference to my post or as an analogy?

and also do you think you would take feedback differently if your creation was an emulator? apples and oranges lol
(i am unaware if your program is infact an emulator ;))

[mathfacts]

when you mention DA, were you using him in reference to my post or as an analogy?

Just an analogy I have used before.


and also do you think you would take feedback differently if your creation was an emulator? apples and oranges lol
(i am unaware if your program is infact an emulator ;))

I doubt it. Think about it this. When a dev sets about to make something, whatever it is, emu, game, silly app, no matter what it is, USUALLY he/she is doing to because they want to. They want to see if they can do it; or they wanted it to exist so they created it. They rarely (if ever) create because so and so wanted them too. (And they probably already know what's not working/missing before you!)

Contests create more homebrew = happier me!

Fairness is difficult, but as long as everyone knows the rules upfront they cannot complain. It's all about trying to create a balanced environment.