Shirt.Woot

You've already covered my viewpoint: This opens up the derby to artists who can't complete their artwork within 24 hours - as they typically have no shot in the Derby.

An alternative to this would have been to only permit Derby voting Wednesday - Thursday, with submissions ending on Tuesday.

Honestly, almost think a combination of the two might work out best.

LOVE LOVE the description of the generic community reactions. Been maybe five ye'r... things ne'er change, and by things, I meant community reactions.

Pretty dang cool experiment!

erm... Thumbs Up if Geekfactor12 sent you here.

Will you select a guest editor based on # of woots/shirts? I know I'm not at the top of that list but I'm pretty high up there.

THIS IS JUST A JOKE. I SWEAR

Here is how it'll play out,

GE : Goldernthorn
Print : Edgar

GE : bass
Print : Rats

GE : Narfcake
Print : do0omcat

GE : TT
Print : Ochopika

GE : No1
Print : himself, it's prohibited, but (s)he'll try anyway.

mtn3pitt wrote:Will you select a guest editor based on # of woots/shirts? I know I'm not at the top of that list but I'm pretty high up there.

Same here. I went and looked on the archive, and I have enter 127 designs... although only like 2 of them have topped 100 votes... yeah I know.. I suck.

chennai8 wrote:
GE : No1
Print : Pandas!

Fixed that for you.

benjaminleebates wrote:I think it would be very fair to look towards some of the people who have a large portfolio of submissions as guest editors. Simply because of the time that they have dedicated to shirt woot. Not exclusively of course, but just a consideration for all their due diligence.

I like that idea!

bassanimation wrote:Thanks for letting me be a part of the new trial

Good on you bassanimation!

I love this. I feel like it will bring balance to the Force.

Of the derby.

aleafloor wrote:This sounds entirely reasonable and I look forward to the change!

I'm curious though if the Special Guest Editor will be prohibited from entering into the derby that they get to judge?

Agreed! I'm excited to see if it works out well. Lately I haven't been a fan of a lot of the shirt winners, so we'll see if this helps get to best shirts on sale.

Maybe we can entice back some of those great artist who won infrequently and therefore went away?
Can anyone get a hold of Drakxxx?
We need a Drakxxx signal!

I'd like to nominate Ignorant as a guest editor.

This is Awesome! I now feel that a slow poke such as myself will have a fighting chance... at least for second place. I think Bassanimation is a very deserving candidate. Well done, Woot!

While I approve of the changes wholeheartedly, I was expecting a gettin' jiggy with it kitten in the forum. For some reason, I haz a disappoint...

Congratulations, bassanimation!

I love the changes! Honestly, this should have been done 2 or 3 years ago. Looking forward to seeing the results of the changes.

I'm thinking that a derby in the near future should have a "numbers" theme and Narf should be guest editor, as a thanks for the numbers.

I like it. Exciting changes. Also, should you be looking for a Brush Painting themed or Robot themed Derby guest editor, my big summer project is just finishing up ; )

j5 wrote:I vote MrWednesday for guest editor.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I highly doubt it. I'm pretty sure being critical of their design choices pretty much eliminates you from contention.

In that vein, I do hope that guest editors are more often chosen from completely outside the woot community. It would on one hand bring new in new people, but more importantly bring in fresh (and I mean fresh in the real sense of the word not fresh in the woot sense of being the same choice but someone slightly different making it) views.

Having woot artists repeatedly simply reinforces the status quo, and if that's the goal there was no reason to flip the rules to being with.

mrwednesday wrote:I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I highly doubt it. I'm pretty sure being critical of their design choices pretty much eliminates you from contention.

In that vein, I do hope that guest editors are more often chosen from completely outside the woot community. It would on one hand bring new in new people, but more importantly bring in fresh (and I mean fresh in the real sense of the word not fresh in the woot sense of being the same choice but someone slightly different making it) views.

Having woot artists repeatedly simply reinforces the status quo, and if that's the goal there was no reason to flip the rules to being with.

Maybe I stand alone in this, or perhaps it's one of those things that some know but won't admit. Anywho, one of the reasons that I began to create for Woot vs. other shirt design sites, is the belief that I really have a chance. Some designs that make it to print aren't the most detailed immaculate masterpieces, but rather have a clever idea that was executed well.
Other sites have such OVER designed Tees that I could never even begin to compete. Only time will tell, but I do fear that some of the diversity of artists could reduce if the winners are chosen by people of note in the shirt world, vs. joe public.
Don't get me wrong, either way it has the potential to cause frustration, how this affects shirts sales will be the ultimate decider, I am sure.

chennai8 wrote:
GE : Narfcake
Print : do0omcat

As awesome as it would be to have Narf as a GE, I doubt he'll be coming back.

That said, I eagerly look forward to Bass' first stint as judge! I actually expect it *not* to contain mice or rats, if only to throw people off.

taternuggets wrote:I'd like to nominate Ignorant as a guest editor.

I second that.

Now that the voting is not as important, can you guys move the fog back down to 4 shirts? Since there's only one shirt printing by votes a 9 fog seems a bit like overkill.

I'm interested to see how this will work! Could be good. Now I just have to think of something to draw for the theme.

DianaSprinkle wrote:Now I just have to think of something to draw for the theme.

Just don't draw a blank.

This is the best news ever!

I've been having a really hard time getting psyched for the derby for a while now. It's tough when an idea doesn't hit with the voters or you get your shirt in too late and it disappears under the first day's submissions.

This has great potential to award a wider range of art for future derbies! Great idea Woot!

I love the changes

Will this system be used for the double take? If so that guest spot seems like it would be rather coveted.

tgentry wrote:...again, we do consider this an experiment. We're as curious as you are to see how it turns out.

So what is the metric that determines a successful result; diversity, vote counts, sales, or something else?



eta: The reason I'm curious is that I noticed some interesting derby trends, and so I charted them.

This is a chart of total vote counts for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for all derbies back to the end of Dec 2011. Click for larger.

j5 wrote:Just don't draw a blank.

LOL! That's pretty painfully... sadly my idea isn't any better on the visual pun front. =D

Yay, I have an idea early in the day! Let's see how long I can procrastinate.

tgentry wrote:EDIT: I also want to add... obviously first place is purely vote driven, but I know we as the editors will also be looking closely at votes and factoring that into our decisions. Votes still count, so keep on voting.

That is good to know. I vote and it's fun to see my choices make it to the top three (when it happens), but I think with the change I will probably only be looking at first place with anticipation. I can also imagine being disappointed to see my favorite get 2nd or 3rd place and not get picked by the art directors or guest editor. I guess I'm on the fence, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it all settles out.

DianaSprinkle wrote:Now that the voting is not as important, can you guys move the fog back down to 4 shirts? Since there's only one shirt printing by votes a 9 fog seems a bit like overkill.

Seconded!

DianaSprinkle wrote:Now that the voting is not as important, can you guys move the fog back down to 4 shirts? Since there's only one shirt printing by votes a 9 fog seems a bit like overkill.

I'm interested to see how this will work! Could be good. Now I just have to think of something to draw for the theme.

I disagree. The selectors might feel overly influenced to pick a top-four fogger.
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Look for Woot's Amazon over-lords to continue pressing the "Deal-a-Day" company for higher profits as Woot!plus undermines the site.

gwendyw wrote:While I approve of the changes wholeheartedly, I was expecting a gettin' jiggy with it kitten in the forum. For some reason, I haz a disappoint...

Congratulations, bassanimation!

Ask and ye shall receive....

My goal is to be the first artist who wins all three places with the same design.

This looks like and interesting and fun experiment and I'm feeling hopeful that this will be a positive change. My only worry is in announcing who the guest editor will be so early, if designs will be too influenced by that, that some artists will try to impress the guest editor. It might be better to delay announcing the guest editor until submissions are closed. But still it's a great idea and I'm really looking forward to seeing designs that might never be printed the old way.

Also, congrats to bassanimation for being picked as the pioneer for this experiment!

sounds like a good experiment.

I do kind of like the current system of votes, then honorable mentions getting a derby, then people at woot picking shirts that really should have printed but didn't.

Although, the more I think about this system the more I think the shirts selected will be more consistently good. And there are always shirts that I love that just have no chance under the current system, and maybe the new system will print some of those.