Shirt.Woot

Can you guys please also vote for some new designers? Not to offend Ramy fans, imo at this point he deserves a spin-off site from Woot. But 4 straight weeks, no wonder lot of artists stopped submitting in derbies.

People will vote for what they like and catches their eye, designers are not even listed unless you click on the design.

I lament that a lot of the designs I vote for never see the fog but that is what the honorable mentions and double take derbies are for.

If there was one improvement woot could make, besides going back to AA blanks, it would be to have designs not be sortable by votes, sometimes it feels like people only vote on entries in the fog.

killerorca wrote:have designs not be sortable by votes, sometimes it feels like people only vote on entries in the fog.

That's a good point, I'll pass it on.

FOG EVERYTHING - it's not as if any1's getting any fun out of watching the races any more anyway.

no1 wrote:FOG EVERYTHING - it's not as if any1's getting any fun out of watching the races any more anyway.

That might be a pretty good idea, actually. The outcome would probably still end up being the same, though.

no1 wrote:FOG EVERYTHING - it's not as if any1's getting any fun out of watching the races any more anyway.

I really like this idea. A lot. I know that personally, I've been guilty at times of only checking the top designs. Usually I'll look at everything on Friday and Saturday and after that I just look at the Fog and the Hotness. I guess if you got rid of the fog, you'd have to get rid of the hotness as well or you could figure out the top designs by which 'good' shirts were never hot.

I think Woot should try this out just for one derby in the near future and see what happens.

It would be nice to see a derby where artists who have a design in the current Reckoning are disqualified from submitting a derby entry that week. Just as a one time derby or every once in a while.

I'm all for fogging everything especially since sorting by date is biased towards new entries so that submitting something late puts you at the top rather than making your design irrelevant.

However, don't expect things to get better. Expect things to get worse. Designers who care about art and their craft have already left the site in droves. Many of their supporters have left with them. What few were left have been large eradicated by the price increase and the switch to Anvil.

The fog entries and the derbies themselves have been clone images of the same two or three things that print every week since. Woot wants it this way because largely the people who like those things don't read the forums and don't care about rules, suppliers or cost. They just want the beady eyed cuddly animal or the shiny swirly on their chest.

If you care about quality there really is no option, but to go elsewhere at this point.

mrwednesday wrote:
If you care about quality there really is no option, but to go elsewhere at this point.

Campaign more for entries that suit your style, perhaps. (Lots of people campaign over social media channels, for example.)

elankat wrote:It would be nice to see a derby where artists who have a design in the current Reckoning are disqualified from submitting a derby entry that week. Just as a one time derby or every once in a while.

I don't think you should punish them - but I think maybe fogging everything would help out a little bit.

To play the devil's advocate a bit, I think the issue has less to do with which designers are being printed and more to do with what styles and subject matter are being printed.

There's a lot of incentive for underperforming artists to imitate what gets votes, which makes things seem annoyingly same-y for people who don't prefer those styles or subjects. Voters will always vote for what they like, no matter who makes it, so the only way around that would be 1) to choose winners through something besides a general vote or 2) to restrict derby entries to an under-utilized style or subject (something Woot already does periodically with themes).

(Also, although Ramy's name is raised a lot in these discussions, his portfolio is actually pretty varied, imo)

inkycatz wrote:Campaign more for entries that suit your style, perhaps. (Lots of people campaign over social media channels, for example.)

not sure that's gonna help him much if there aren't any entries at all that he feels are worth the effort of campaigning.

newnie wrote:I don't think you should punish them - but I think maybe fogging everything would help out a little bit.

I fail to see how it's "punishing" if there's one derby that's off limits to the same 6 or 7 artists who always have shirts up for sale, particularly when those artists frequently have non-derby prints and prints on other sites.

I doubt fogging everything helps at all.

inkycatz wrote:Campaign more for entries that suit your style, perhaps. (Lots of people campaign over social media channels, for example.)

Entries would suit my style a whole lot better on shirts that actually fit, instead of what you're printing on now. Not worth the effort when the finished product isn't wearable.

geekfactor12 wrote:To play the devil's advocate a bit, I think the issue has less to do with which designers are being printed and more to do with what styles and subject matter are being printed.

There's a lot of incentive for underperforming artists to imitate what gets votes, which makes things seem annoyingly same-y for people who don't prefer those styles or subjects. Voters will always vote for what they like, no matter who makes it, so the only way around that would be 1) to choose winners through something besides a general vote or 2) to restrict derby entries to an under-utilized style or subject (something Woot already does periodically with themes).

(Also, although Ramy's name is raised a lot in these discussions, his portfolio is actually pretty varied, imo)

Agreed on the imitation. I personally like seeing Woot suggest a style as a derby - there were some pretty interesting and creative designs for Watercolour.

As for ramyb, I think his porfolio has diversified recently (which has produced some great things), but he goes back sometimes (e.g. this derby) to a crowd-pleasing design that unfortunately has careless flaws. Overall, I think every artist - including ramyb - produce better works when they're pushed to create a design that's not their "usual."

trekmiss wrote:Entries would suit my style a whole lot better on shirts that actually fit, instead of what you're printing on now. Not worth the effort when the finished product isn't wearable.

You could campaign for an AA-option, but my cynicism says it won't make a difference...

I do like the suggestion of not showing the vote tallies/rankings. After even just 2 days things get lost in the shuffle and no matter how much I might like a design, I start to resign myself to the fact that if it isn't in the fog right away, it's probably not printing.

I wish there was a way to have designs submitted anonymously but given the discussions that happen in the forums before people submit that isn't much of an option.

I disagree with restricting who can participate in derbies. There are some pretty talented artists here and their work shouldn't be restricted just because they've been successful. Also, the idea that because X Y or Z has designs available elsewhere they shouldn't be considered at woot might seem fair at first but is actually pretty terrible. Going through who has had their outside work advertised, those are the artists who consistently come up with good, print worthy designs. Folks shouldn't be disqualified from participating just because they're talented and have enjoyed a bit of success. Plus, at that point, I think the overall quality of eligible designs will go way down.

aerc712 wrote:Plus, at that point, I think the overall quality of eligible designs will go way down.

Yes, I'm quite sure a single derby that disqualified a handful of artists would cause the quality to absolutely plummet.

Take a look at the poetry derby and the designs just out of the fog. There were loads of great designs, many of which were fresh and different.

elankat wrote:
Take a look at the poetry derby and the designs just out of the fog. There were loads of great designs, many of which were fresh and different.

At the begining of the poetry derby I was thinking this was going to cost me a lot, but instead it has broken my heart... what I wanted never made it to or fell out of the fog.

When I vote, I pay no attention to te artist. I just look at the art. Ofcourse, there are artists I am likely to vote for, but that is because I am drawn to their style, not because I saw it was them who entered the image.

loridi wrote:At the begining of the poetry derby I was thinking this was going to cost me a lot, but instead it has broken my heart... what I wanted never made it to or fell out of the fog.

Nothing new for me ... but it is a democracy here, for better or worse, and I'm not exactly for any intervention in that process either.

When I vote, I pay no attention to te artist. I just look at the art. Of course, there are artists I am likely to vote for, but that is because I am drawn to their style, not because I saw it was them who entered the image.

Ditto. "No free passes", even to my favorite artists.

For a certain artist ... 2 steps forward, one step back ... again. ENOUGH with the tur(bunguins)!

Narfcake wrote:Nothing new for me ... but it is a democracy here, for better or worse, and I'm not exactly for any intervention in that process either.

It is, and one where you only get one vote per entry, which keeps the process fair. That, and the fact you need to have purchased at least one shirt, keeps out the padding votes for favourites. It really needs to have appealled to the majority.

elankat wrote:Yes, I'm quite sure a single derby that disqualified a handful of artists would cause the quality to absolutely plummet.

Take a look at the poetry derby and the designs just out of the fog. There were loads of great designs, many of which were fresh and different.

The proposal that those with designs already being printed (here or elsewhere) be disqualified from entering the derby would, in my opinion, keep some talented artists from sharing their work merely because they've been successful. There are quite a few artists represented in the reckoning right now and if all of them were barred from a derby or two because of that, I do believe that the woot community would miss out on some great designs.

Personally, I didn't like many of the designs for the poetry derby. There are some designs that I loved (unfortunately not the ones that have printed so far) but overall I didn't like many of them. That's just my personal preference.

Everyone here has their own opinions and regardless of the derby's setup, there will always be someone who is unhappy with what is printed. People might hate the cute animals, others love them. Others might dislike the darker humor, others revel in it. Some might like the more abstract/high concept art designs (forgive the odd description, never was much of an art student), but other folks might pass over those designs. It stinks when you have a derby design that you love and it isn't printed, but for every unhappy person there's someone jumping for joy and happy that they can purchase their favorite design.

loridi wrote:It is, and one where you only get one vote per entry, which keeps the process fair. That, and the fact you need to have purchased at least one shirt, keeps out the padding votes for favourites. It really needs to have appealled to the majority.

It might be worth noting that the derby winners reflect the majority of voters rather than the majority of overall customers, though. For instance, in the last derby the 3rd place finisher outsold 1st and 2nd place. And that's not uncommon- the same buying pattern has occurred in the last 3 derbies.

(Not to imply that there's an easy fix for it, because there isn't.)

geekfactor12 wrote:It might be worth noting that the derby winners reflect the majority of voters rather than the majority of overall customers, though. For instance, in the last derby the 3rd place finisher outsold 1st and 2nd place. And that's not uncommon- the same buying pattern has occurred in the last 3 derbies.

(Not to imply that there's an easy fix for it, because there isn't.)

Though I agree completely that the voting community isn't necessarily representative of the buying community, it has also been noted in the reckoning discussion that the past few weeks 3rd place has been on AA whereas 1st and 2nd were not. It's hard to say what effect that has had on sales, but it's certainly another factor.

mrwednesday wrote:Though I agree completely that the voting community isn't necessarily representative of the buying community, it has also been noted in the reckoning discussion that the past few weeks 3rd place has been on AA whereas 1st and 2nd were not. It's hard to say what effect that has had on sales, but it's certainly another factor.

Last week's 2nd place was AA and by Woot's #1 artist; it sold the least of the three.

We've seen 1st place winners last a week, and 30th place editor's choices last for months. No rhyme, no reason, really.

i don't think it would be unfair to hold a derby that excluded the top x number of artist by number of prints or any artist with more that x number of prints or something, as long as it was a one time derby. if it were a consistant or frequent thing it would be quite unfair and would be bad for overall shirt quality, but as a singular occurance it might be interesting.

i will say this about fogging all the derby entries. i'll vote for an entry that i like but might not wear for some reason (shirt color or something) if it's lower down, but i only vote for fogged entries if i really would buy them.

As an unsuccessful designer myself, I do notice a few things that make participating in the derby frustrating (granted, the lack of success probably stems mostly from my designs not being very good, but let's ignore that, shall we ).

I don't think it's fair to punish designers who have won previously. The derby should be open to all who want to enter. I find that competing against better artists only makes me want to do better myself.

I think it would be interesting to see the results of a derby where there were a few changes made to how things work. My thoughts:

- Sortability by date. I think that sorting by date skews the results. If people are checking by date, then they're probably only looking at the earliest entries or at the latest entries. Things in the middle get lost.

-Sorting by votes/showing votes - Also, if they're sorting by vote, they're probably only voting for the top 20 designs or so. And if they see that a design has a low vote total, they're less inclined to vote for or get attached to something that won't win.

-The hotness. It's helpful for showing what's popular at the time, but I think it's also self-perpetuating. Voters look at and vote for what's in the hotness, therefore making it harder for entries to get into the hotness. Maybe have it be a list of random entries instead of what's currently popular?


I wonder if it would be possible to change the derby structure and add some sort of time delay. Obviously the majority of entries are put up throughout the day Friday (or within 24 hrs of the derby opening). So what I'm imagining is this:

Wednesday @ Noon- Derby Theme announced
Thursday @ Noon- Derby is open for submissions but entries are stored in Woot's database, and not posted online
Friday @ Noon - Entries submitted in previous 24 hrs are all placed up for voting in a random order and from that point on any submitted entry is immediately put up, with all entries still sorted randomly.


Wow that was a lot of text. Sorry for the rambling. Those are just some thoughts I've had from my limited participation in derbies. But this is still a lot of fun and I'll keep submitting and trying to get better no matter what.

tjschaeffer wrote:I don't think it's fair to punish designers who have won previously. The derby should be open to all who want to enter. I find that competing against better artists only makes me want to do better myself.

i used to think this way. however, now that the handful of artists good enough to win the derby on a regular basis are starting to dominate the dailies as well, i'm getting bored with the shirt.woot offerings overall. mabe the dailies from designers living in a faraway land didn't sell so much or something, but at least they made the dailies look different than the derbies.

chennai8 wrote:Can you guys please also vote for some new designers? Not to offend Ramy fans, imo at this point he deserves a spin-off site from Woot. But 4 straight weeks, no wonder lot of artists stopped submitting in derbies.

I think fogging everything might work, or, eliminating artists' names. That way, every shirt is displayed fairly, with no inkling of who designed what. If it's really a question of bias for or against a particilar creator, then a derby with all entries displayed without names would give each entry a fair chance.

tarmawolf wrote:I think fogging everything might work, or, eliminating artists' names. That way, every shirt is displayed fairly, with no inkling of who designed what.

except for the artists promoting their own designs, in the derby thread, facespace, mybook, twatter, and elsewhere.

As I recall, the attempt to have an anonymous derby was a flop.

Not showing the votes would work for a while, but I think it would cause even more weighting to those who submit on Friday.

Banning popular artists won't change the content.

It's sad that so many artists are leaving, but I'm not seeing anything suggested that would bring them back. I don't know why many left, but I'd guess a lot of it is frustration at increased prices without an increase in pay, decrease potential pay, shirt fit. From the little I've seen, no one has indicated 'XYZ always wins so I'm going to stop submitting.'

My own purchases have dropped but that's a combination of not finding a shirt I like and knowing that if I do buy something, I'll need to pull something else out of the closet for storage.

tjschaeffer wrote:I wonder if it would be possible to change the derby structure and add some sort of time delay. Obviously the majority of entries are put up throughout the day Friday (or within 24 hrs of the derby opening). So what I'm imagining is this:

Wednesday @ Noon- Derby Theme announced
Thursday @ Noon- Derby is open for submissions but entries are stored in Woot's database, and not posted online
Friday @ Noon - Entries submitted in previous 24 hrs are all placed up for voting in a random order and from that point on any submitted entry is immediately put up...

this. i don't care about anonymous entries, and i like that i can sort by date or vote. i always sort by date first, start at the bottom, and look at every single shirt entered into each derby. i know not everyone does that, but it lets me know which shirts i've seen and which ones i haven't yet. also, once i'm done, i like to sort by vote so i can see which shirts are currently winning, and whether it's ones i liked or not. but i do think eliminating the whole "post at 12:01 to get more votes" could be helpful to newer artists that may take a little longer to finish their work. just my thoughts on the matter.

That 24 hours from derby announcement to submission time is often what keeps me and ignorant from submitting. We just can't come up with a good idea and execute it very often in that amount of time.

I personally don't like the idea of fogging everything (I don't really have enough time to go through every entry when most neither appeal to me nor have any chance of printing), but I can understand the dilemma of the mid-range submissions. Perhaps, they could fog everything for the first few days and then reveal the fogged 9 and vote totals for 10+ on Monday/Tuesday? This way, late voters can focus on designs that might actually print.

no1 wrote:i used to think this way. however, now that the handful of artists good enough to win the derby on a regular basis are starting to dominate the dailies as well, i'm getting bored with the shirt.woot offerings overall. mabe the dailies from designers living in a faraway land didn't sell so much or something, but at least they made the dailies look different than the derbies.

This has shocked me a lot actually. Until about 6-8 months ago there seems be a pretty hard and fast rule that if you were a derby artist you weren't getting a daily (with a few exceptions). But now it seems like derby artists are all over the dailies, especially the kawaii klub.

It makes very little sense to me except maybe that they've alienated so much of the the customer base that doesn't want a cute pop culture reference that they aren't getting submissions from enough non-derbiers to fill their slate.

Mavyn wrote:As I recall, the attempt to have an anonymous derby was a flop.

Not showing the votes would work for a while, but I think it would cause even more weighting to those who submit on Friday.

Banning popular artists won't change the content.

It's sad that so many artists are leaving, but I'm not seeing anything suggested that would bring them back. I don't know why many left, but I'd guess a lot of it is frustration at increased prices without an increase in pay, decrease potential pay, shirt fit. From the little I've seen, no one has indicated 'XYZ always wins so I'm going to stop submitting.'

My own purchases have dropped but that's a combination of not finding a shirt I like and knowing that if I do buy something, I'll need to pull something else out of the closet for storage.

I just don't feel like anything I draw is going to attract much of an audience here any more. I have no interest in creating art in the style that dominates here. So, yeah, to some degree, since XYZ always wins, I have little incentive to keep submitting.

I do agree with tater, though, that having more than 24 hrs would help me tremendously to make my work more competitive.

Josephus wrote:I just don't feel like anything I draw is going to attract much of an audience here any more. I have no interest in creating art in the style that dominates here. So, yeah, to some degree, since XYZ always wins, I have little incentive to keep submitting.

I do agree with tater, though, that having more than 24 hrs would help me tremendously to make my work more competitive.

I'm not sure competitive really matters unfortunately. I honestly think that your cat designs were orders of magnitude better than anything I've seen on woot in a long time in terms of style, execution, and color. They could have printed either on of them 4 times in a row and it would have been infinitely better than the EC's they did choose. The voters completely whiffed and that's to be expected, but when woot strikes out as well (as they have for at least the last 5-6 rounds of EC's) I have very little hope that better designs have a shot.

Imagine this. With an extra day ramy could probably submit 6 designs instead of 3. You really think you have a better shot at a print? Even cmdixon has severely reduced his presence and he had a pretty spectacular record of winning with abstract, artistic, creative designs...

Ok rant over. I'm just still really pissed those cats never printed.

mrwednesday wrote:I'm not sure competitive really matters unfortunately. I honestly think that your cat designs were orders of magnitude better than anything I've seen on woot in a long time in terms of style, execution, and color. They could have printed either on of them 4 times in a row and it would have been infinitely better than the EC's they did choose. The voters completely whiffed and that's to be expected, but when woot strikes out as well (as they have for at least the last 5-6 rounds of EC's) I have very little hope that better designs have a shot.

Imagine this. With an extra day ramy could probably submit 6 designs instead of 3. You really think you have a better shot at a print? Even cmdixon has severely reduced his presence and he had a pretty spectacular record of winning with abstract, artistic, creative designs...

Ok rant over. I'm just still really pissed those cats never printed.

hmm.
thanks for that. ;^)
Let me say, no, I don't think I'm likely to print again other than one of those flukey designs that just hit the audience right. But I do think that an extra day, or a whole week, will improve my submission a whole lot more than it will Ramy's, or Patrick, or any of those who print over and over. They are pros, and I'm not, so the extra time would help me to execute my vision, while they can already execute their vision in the time already available. They might be able to sub more with the extra time, but their entries won't be as much better as mine will.

Artists will never complain that XYZ is the reason they quit. That will put them in bad spotlight. But it's like the elephant in the room, that no matter how much effort they put, they lose to that one turtle (bunny or penguin). I seriously miss seeing Drakxxx, CD, InfinityLoop, Jewelwing and others in a woot derby.

elankat wrote:I fail to see how it's "punishing" if there's one derby that's off limits to the same 6 or 7 artists who always have shirts up for sale, particularly when those artists frequently have non-derby prints and prints on other sites.

I doubt fogging everything helps at all.

I always see this as the equivalent of my boss coming in and saying "Bounty, been doing a great job, love your work, best we've seen in a long time. So we're going to have to lay you off for a couple of weeks, you know, so the guys who aren't doing so well can earn some cash too. You understand, right?"