Shirt.Woot

no1 wrote:idk, i can imagine woot asking an outside celeb to be guest editor, and the first thing they do when looking could be to rank by votes, start looking from the top down (counting on the voters to order them by "quality" and thereby save the celeb valuable time) and stop when they find something interesting, meaning the middle of the pack still mite not get noticed.

Depends on the celeb I guess, find somebody who is legitimately interested in finding something cool that they personally like and are willing to put some time and thought into it and they'll look past the top 20, and at least see all the thumbnails until they hit the paintbrush entries at the bottom.

The sponsored derbies set a good precedent I think. I remember Devo at least chose one that wasn't in the top 4

Fantastic idea! This will limit the pop culture shirts and let some of the wonderful art shirts win! Wonderful!

bluetuba wrote:

The sponsored derbies set a good precedent I think. I remember Devo at least chose one that wasn't in the top 4

So true! Again, I'm very excited about this. I've honestly lost interest in the derbies, and the shirts, over the last few months and I have gotten tired of so much pop culture and so little great art. (I can go to Tee Fury for pop culture.)

medbie wrote:Fantastic idea! This will limit the pop culture shirts and let some of the wonderful art shirts win! Wonderful!

How do you think this will limit the pop culture?

If anything, it will increase it. Sure there's a lot of pop culture hate, but you might get selected anyways!

This sounds fantastic. May motivate me to enter the derbies again!

I love the changes, my only suggestion would be keep the guest editor secret until the pics are made. For one it will eliminate kissass comments.

j5 wrote:I vote MrWednesday for guest editor.

I almost spit my wine out when I read this. LMWineO

CrescentDebris wrote:GUEST EDITOR change options

Actually CD, I think someone like you will be very conscientious and only pick a design by one of your favorites IF AND ONLY IF is was truly print-worthy.

If the there were no honorable mentions and you got to pick all 3, then I think that your options would be very valid. But this way, we get to see "What would Crescent pick to wear from this selection?" After all, no one is forced to buy your selection either. Since a lot of your designs have printed and have sold well, there will be a good number of voters who will agree with you.

I think you are worried too much. But that's just your golden sense of values showing through. ;)

Mavyn wrote:Change is good. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out, but first thought? Really off putting to see all the people 'volunteering' to be a guest judge.

Why? This is a site built on a community being vocal, should we pipe down now? I buy t-shirts, I've entered derbies, I have opinions about art and design, I'm a fairly active member of the shirt.woot community, I have a sense of humor about most things as well as my chances of being picked -- refer the ; ) I ended my post with. So why not offer to jump in on the fun? Probably many of the 'volunteers' feel the same. And why is that in ' ' ?

If the staff at shirt.woot wants other information or credentials or assurances about integrity, well, that's between them and their guest editor picks and I'm sure they'd be quite up front about asking.

Woot should use a guest-choice-fog, or Editor's-Choice-fog for contenders that are in the running for the 2nd and 3rd place. Personally I've always enjoyed the excitement of derbies, getting into the fog is so exhilarating. If there was some indication of potential winners for the other two categories, that could add a whole new excitement to the derby!

**PS- I also really appreciate trying to find a way to even out submissions throughout the week. It's frustrating submitting something Monday knowing you have no chance of winning without catching up to the hundreds of votes already submitted.

I think as others have pointed out, that there should be a top 2 votes, an editors choice, and a special guest chosen shirt printed.

Yes, this would give 4 similar themed shirts in a row, but I don't see the problem with this as they will most likely be very different from each other given these 4 methods of choosing the prints.

How well do the dailies sell anyways? Aren't they all editor's choices? I think the derby still needs to have more than one winner getting printed or else it takes away from the derby(the community picking what prints). I think only having one winner will cause voters to not vote as much and will most likely REALLY disappoint/upset artists that finish 2nd and 3rd that don't get printed.

Also, I can see this change harming the double take derby and editors choice week as well.

I understand the change, but going to only one community selected print seems to be too harsh in my opinion and takes away from the experience. This now computes to 1 community picked shirt, and 6 editor chosen shirts.

Seems to me that the one winner will just cause the normal winners to ramp up vote posturing and Fridays on woot will be "Ramyb, PatrickSpens, or Walmazan print days." (All three of which probably dislike the new format very much)

Why not at least print the 2nd and 3rd place shirts in the shirt plus sale that week, or possibly vice versa and include the editors choice and guests choice be in the shirt plus sale.

Fantastic! I feel this will breathe new life into the final three selections. It will also offer hope to those of us who don't have time to turn around a proper design overnight. While I am new to the Shirt Derby forums and have only submitted a few shirts for voting, I have been a follower of the Derby for some time. Thanks for Shaking it Up! Looking forward to it.

I like the possibility there won't be three variations of "Hello Kitty," or other painfully cute winning designs every Derby. Obviously a cabal made up of those "friends" who slap posters of sunrises and rainbows 10 at a time on Facebook were dominating the voting. I considered dropping out over all the kitsch. This opens things up a little. Good job acknowledging the obvious!

renegadetim wrote:I think only having one winner will cause voters to not vote as much and will most likely REALLY disappoint/upset artists that finish 2nd and 3rd that don't get printed.
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Seems to me that the one winner will just cause the normal winners to ramp up vote posturing and Fridays on woot will be "Ramyb, PatrickSpens, or Walmazan print days." (All three of which probably dislike the new format very much)

I don't know.
Based on the chart I posted on page 2 I see a couple of things.
1: The vote disparity between 1st place and 2nd/3rd is significant more often than not.
2: Vote count has been dropping since February

To your other point. It's Saturday, and while Spens busted out of the gate early, I don't see Ramy or Walmazan's entries. (unless I missed something)

Certainly valid points, and certainly something to watch for.

this will eliminate the possibility of a tie vote and subsequent twofer. other than that it doesn't seem that horrible.

Honestly I'm not shedding any tears over the woot rich getting a little less rich here. I think Patrick and Walmazan will both be fine and see EC picks because the former has been capable of putting out some very impressive art that will impress the judges and Walmazan has great ideas and an interesting style. When they are on theme I'll bet they still print.

Ramyb, one can only hope, won't get away with crapping out a turbunguin, glowy side swirl, or hasty pop culture rip and print all the time. He's had plenty of #2 and #3's that'll be gone. And cheer up buttercups, you never know, maybe Ramyb will miss his cashcow so much he'll actually start taking some time and effort on his ideas, design, and artwork in an effort to impress the editors instead of the simple masses.

Then again, the editors HAVE been giving him HM's in the last year, and he's in nearly every side-sale. The plan here might be much like the side sale, they pick a little bit of everything in an attempt to keep everybody happy. But it's still an improvement for the derby since something like BATS! would never ever win in woot's current (where's the cute? where's the reference?) derby culture.

Maniacmous wrote:In honor of Bassanimation's first guest hosting gig - we need to resurrect a small run of their greatest design - The Cheese is a Liederkranz!

(Ok, in the interest of full disclosure - I just need a replacement or 3).

Yes, please!

bluetuba wrote:Honestly I'm not shedding any tears over the woot rich getting a little less rich here. I think Patrick and Walmazan will both be fine and see EC picks because the former has been capable of putting out some very impressive art that will impress the judges and Walmazan has great ideas and an interesting style. When they are on theme I'll bet they still print.

Ramyb, one can only hope, won't get away with crapping out a turbunguin, glowy side swirl, or hasty pop culture rip and print all the time. He's had plenty of #2 and #3's that'll be gone. And cheer up buttercups, you never know, maybe Ramyb will miss his cashcow so much he'll actually start taking some time and effort on his ideas, design, and artwork in an effort to impress the editors instead of the simple masses.

Then again, the editors HAVE been giving him HM's in the last year, and he's in nearly every side-sale. The plan here might be much like the side sale, they pick a little bit of everything in an attempt to keep everybody happy. But it's still an improvement for the derby since something like BATS! would never ever win in woot's current (where's the cute? where's the reference?) derby culture.

I think we'll still see a fair amount of Ramyb prints even if he's not 1st. Woot's going to pick what they think will sell. Ramy has definitely proven over the years that he can move some shirts.

Same goes for pop culture shirts. Now I can't imagine that means we'll see all pop all the time, but I believe we'll see about the same ratio of pop to non-pop that we see in the dailies.

Ramy starts medical school sometime in the next six weeks; I suspect that we'll be seeing fewer entries from him regardless of changes to the Derby.

neuropsychosocial wrote:Ramy starts medical school sometime in the next six weeks; I suspect that we'll be seeing fewer entries from him regardless of changes to the Derby.

Medical school? That is AWESOME. And hard as heck to get through-I'm totally impressed. Congrats to Ramy!

bluetuba wrote:... But it's still an improvement for the derby since something like BATS! would never ever win in woot's current (where's the cute? where's the reference?) derby culture.

My memory is that BATS! was a daily.

I'm ...incredibly surprised by this move and I may seriously return to doing designs. Last week really was the last straw with all the amazing designs thta were passed over but...

yeah, AWESOME.

Oh and, there's my first positive reply! :P

See, I AM capable.

I love this idea personally! Artists will be able to take some time to execute their ideas, and Woot will manage to have more artistic control over what prints. Maybe Woot will go back to being awesomely quirky again even on weekends!

To test this change, I would love to see a page that would group together all the selections.

Specifically I'd be worried that Art Directors or Guest Editors might choose similar designs too often.

If it was up to me, I might group those two, and say that the guest editor has a larger vote than most of the art directors, and that be 2 or 3 place.


Then a weighted vote to choose the other two places, so like have the votes be weighted by the number of entries at that time.
A vote while there are 10 entries is worth half of that as a vote when there are 20 entries. actually not linearly like that, since people might vote after only looking at 10 out of 20 (or rather looking at 50 out of 200)...
So probably weight votes on the top 5 or so lower than any other votes also.

Or could be like Deals weighting, but instead of time have that variable be the number of entries that exist, and not as harsh.

Woot has art directors? WHO KNEW?

This is an amazing change. There have been so many shirts that I've wanted to buy here that I felt were artistically great, but instead they lose to some mashup pop culture designs. Hopefully this will help print the better designs.

If there is a tie in the voting of the art directors, will you sell two (or three, or four, or five!) for $12??????

For those making suggestions on the mechanics of all this, don't expect any change for a long while if at all.
Logistically, this is a very easy change. Just print 3 shirts based on different criteria than before. No date changes, no code changes, no changes to T&C, or any of that.
Simple.

The jury is out on the other outcome, but if HMs/ECs are any indication, don't expect a revolution.

klynb wrote:Ask and ye shall receive....

lol... I thought "gettin jiggy with it kitten" was one of Woot's auto-censored replacement phrases.

I am in favor of all of these changes. It seems like the same types of shirts get voted for again and again and that the quality has decreased somewhat. I want art director feedback. Also an encouragement of text intgration/text allowance more often wouldn't hurt.

Lasers hurt my eyes.

geekgirl452 wrote:I am in favor of all of these changes. It seems like the same types of shirts get voted for again and again and that the quality has decreased somewhat. I want art director feedback

FWIW, as of 30 seconds ago, 12 of the top 20 shirts in the Reckoning were Derby shirts, selected by wooters without any input from the art director. Each week, over 50% of shirts are selected by the art director (4 of 7); statistically, we'd expect 43% of the shirts in the top 20 to be from the Derby, but instead 60% are from the Derby. So by the metric that matters most to woot (i.e., sales), the Derby shirts selected by the public are disproportionately more successful than those selected by the art director.

(I'd add a caveat that while UnNinja3 was a Daily, UnNinja1 and UnNinja2 were Derby shirts, so the Derby voters were the first to embrace UnNinja.)

neuropsychosocial wrote:So by the metric that matters most to woot (i.e., sales), the Derby shirts selected by the public are disproportionately more successful than those selected by the art director.

Which gets back to my earlier question; what metric will be used to determine the success or failure of this little "experiment"?

j5 wrote:Which gets back to my earlier question; what metric will be used to determine the success or failure of this little "experiment"?

Their "Gut"

They're going to read Moneyball and disregard all of its lessons :-P

lonelypond wrote:Why? This is a site built on a community being vocal, should we pipe down now? I buy t-shirts, I've entered derbies, I have opinions about art and design, I'm a fairly active member of the shirt.woot community, I have a sense of humor about most things as well as my chances of being picked -- refer the ; ) I ended my post with. So why not offer to jump in on the fun? Probably many of the 'volunteers' feel the same. And why is that in ' ' ?

If the staff at shirt.woot wants other information or credentials or assurances about integrity, well, that's between them and their guest editor picks and I'm sure they'd be quite up front about asking.

Woot didn't ask for volunteers nor nominations. Hence the ''.

Mavyn wrote:Woot didn't ask for volunteers nor nominations. Hence the ''.

In my defense, I nominated Wednesday because I think he has good taste, and for the sheer irony.

This does keep Star Wars, bunnies, zombies, zombie bunnies, Dr. Who, and all the other dead horses from taking all three spots. I approve, whatever that's worth...

I like the new rules, but I think they're the solution to the wrong problem. The community of participants is shrinking, and having only one print from votes means that the already neglected voter pool matters even less. As j5's graph showed, voting has been trending downward all year, and if you look at the typical derby from 3 or 4 years ago, there were at least as many votes for winners back then. I think woot needs to focus more on revitalizing the community, on making the derby more obvious and accessible to new users. I can't tell you how many people I've met who check out shirt.woot and have never even seen the derby. Changing the internals of the derby only satisfies those of us who are already die-hards, who've weathered the redesign and supplier change. We're here for the long haul; thanks for appeasing us, but we need our community to grow. The site redesign and addition of tech, sport, kids.woot, etc. make the derby even more esoteric. Let's have changes that bring in new voters. A guest editor for a day is not going to drastically change the flavor of shirt.woot. Why not allow the voters to keep their current power and have the guest editor choose Thursday or Monday's shirt?

j5 wrote:In my defense, I nominated Wednesday because I think he has good taste, and for the sheer irony.

No one needs to defend their actions to me.

I took that to be more jest than anything else, and far less brash than volunteering.

Being a guest editor is an honor. You don't volunteer to receive an honor.

Wow. This looks familiar. I honestly never thought I would see these changes made here, even if they might only be temporary.

Well played, shirt.woot. Good luck on sales.

Cheers,

-art