Shirt.Woot

somewhere between loving it and reserving judgment.

but i don't hate it.

A year ago I would have voted that I love it! Now I just don't care. Quality has slipped so much between printing issues and shirt blanks, that a derby change up doesn't even matter anymore. Fix these issues, and I'd be back on board with loving it!

Hate is a strong word, but I'm a little more dubious than middling.

Personally I'd like to see a 1st and 2nd picked by everyone, a editors choice each week, and a guest choice the 4th day. In other words, getting rid of one of the random dailies.

Still, curious to see how it rolls out.

kevlar51 wrote:somewhere between loving it and reserving judgment.

but i don't hate it.

It's a bold change + an interesting one. I think it's designed to boost the community discussion/interaction as well. I'm curious to see how it sorts out.

I just think it's interesting that no one hates it (yet). You'd think someone would just give them a hard time for the heck of it.

stm027 wrote:I just think it's interesting that no one hates it (yet). You'd think someone would just give them a hard time for the heck of it.

That will come. Likely from someone who believes Woot is an evil failure.

The idea is pretty interesting and definitely worth a shot. This helps out artists who don't submit right away, may get someone printed for the first time, and is geared to community involvement, which will be nice. It'll be interesting see how everything goes.

jezebelseven wrote:Hate is a strong word, but I'm a little more dubious than middling.
Personally I'd like to see a 1st and 2nd picked by everyone, a editors choice each week, and a guest choice the 4th day. In other words, getting rid of one of the random dailies.

Still, curious to see how it rolls out.

your idea will end up with 4 similar designs every week. Some weeks it means 4 cat shirts, if the theme allows it.

stm027 wrote:I just think it's interesting that no one hates it (yet). You'd think someone would just give them a hard time for the heck of it.

I don't really see why there would be other than designers who rely on the unthinking masses to repeatedly vote whatever they submit.

As a bit of background, this exact format was bandied around by many who opposed the now previous format (including Adder and tgentry was a major proponent as well which is probably a significant part of why it is happening now). This idea was out in the community at least 2 years ago if not longer. At the time it received the same indifference or derision from staff that most community ideas get now.

mrwednesday wrote:At the time it received the same indifference or derision from staff that most community ideas get now.

NIH*-ilism?


*Not Invented Here

Wow. NOBODY hates the idea. I guess the flood of popular referential shirts in the derby lately has been noticed by more than just the staff!

Isn't 2nd place basically an Editor's Choice that usually gets printed on Monday? I'd rather see that kept the same, and have both 1st and 2nd be by popular vote.

4khaos wrote:Isn't 2nd place basically an Editor's Choice that usually gets printed on Monday?

nope.
Editor's choice are only during double-takes, and are Monday-Thursday.

Where's the Hotel?, I know it's early in the poll but the negative cynical option has 0%?? At a place like Woot?? o.o;;

Oh! On the productive side... Does this mean the fog will get reduced back down to four or at most 6? I've always kinda hated the fog of 9, and if only one shirt out of all of them is going to win on votes, shouldn't the number in the fog decrease at this point?

I love the new rules, and I'm happy to see Shirt.Woot joining in on the polls!

I'm basically repeating my post in the rules thread, but I see this as giving a chance not only to the late and resubmitted entries, but also to the entries that lost out due to pop culture or an artist's name winning the votes.

Can't wait to see how this turns out!

j5 wrote:nope.
Editor's choice are only during double-takes, and are Monday-Thursday.

Eh. Well then, Editor's choices will be redundant considering each derby will have an Editor's choice.

I think this will improve things considerably. I will begin to submit designs again. With the voting only, you only seem to have a chance to get printed if you are very big on lobbying. Those of us who aren't huge social media people and who cannot stay up all night Thursday night working on designs, don't really have a shot. This WILL improve the quality of shirts. Although it is rare, now occasionally there are a few coming through now that do not last in reckoning at all because they did not deserve to be printed at all... but just were voted for by sufficient number of friends. I love new rules. I will submit again... previously I had given up on your site for any potential sales for me.

Would also like to see 4 picks with the top 2 from the votes

Anything that will end the monopoly of awful hacks is fine by me.

There are some artists that see lots of printing, and for the most part, I think they do good work and deserve to win. That being said, there are artists who have left I miss, and so, as I've said in the main thread, this is very exciting. I think this has the potential to re-energize the derby and competition.

If only an editor or guest had put Geary-O's through. Best cereal shirt ever.

Serious question here: Is woot actively looking for new ways to not listen to customers now? It sure seems that way. If you want to print different shirts than those that win the vote, you have 4 other days a week in which to do so. Have at it. I can't for the life of me understand why you would NOT want to print the shirts that your customers want to buy. Is woot trying to lose sales? I'm baffled. See watch me baff.

Im pretty excited to see how the new rules work out.

A long time ago, we discussed how something like this would be, and at the time I didnt like the idea at all. I felt it was unfair for the top three who did manage to get the popular support. But, over time, the dynamics of the derby have become somewhat dull, at least from my perspective. Winning was already pretty difficult, and if you didnt get a shirt in right on time you had very little chance (except for TJost, he's a late-submssion-ninja). I dont participate much in the derbies these days due to time constraints. This trial system actually does offer me more of a chance to participate, as I can work on a shirt for longer without feeling like Im wasting precious voter hours.

Also this offers a great chance for art to print that might not make it otherwise. We've all seen great tees fall by the wayside, simply because in one particular week, there's some good Star Wars shirts taking the fog. Doesnt mean there's not other great tees that could print, they just didnt that week.

Should be interesting though, Im looking forward to the brouhaha!

Judging from what I've seen in the editor's picks compared to what the hoi polloi chooses every week, I'm excited for this new system. I think it will be refreshing to see some decent creativity chosen alongside the same senseless overused lolcat pop culture designs that cloud up the fog every week.

bassanimation wrote:Im pretty excited to see how the new rules work out.

A long time ago, we discussed how something like this would be, and at the time I didnt like the idea at all. I felt it was unfair for the top three who did manage to get the popular support. But, over time, the dynamics of the derby have become somewhat dull, at least from my perspective. Winning was already pretty difficult, and if you didnt get a shirt in right on time you had very little chance (except for TJost, he's a late-submssion-ninja). I dont participate much in the derbies these days due to time constraints. This trial system actually does offer me more of a chance to participate, as I can work on a shirt for longer without feeling like Im wasting precious voter hours.

Also this offers a great chance for art to print that might not make it otherwise. We've all seen great tees fall by the wayside, simply because in one particular week, there's some good Star Wars shirts taking the fog. Doesnt mean there's not other great tees that could print, they just didnt that week.

Should be interesting though, Im looking forward to the brouhaha!

Quality post! You look magnificent by the way

The more I think about this change, the more I'm looking forward to it, I think there's a really good chance to print some great artists who otherwise would have become fed up and parted ways much earlier.

Like others have already said, I think keeping the Guest Editor's Identity a secret until picks are done (for reasons I demonstrated above). But I definitely think it'll be cool to find out who's picking what when the dust settles. Maybe even a quick discussion on what worked well with the selected design?

kevlar51 wrote:
Like others have already said, I think keeping the Guest Editor's Identity a secret until picks are done (for reasons I demonstrated above).

I definitely see your point about keeping the guest editor a mystery. Im pretty good about being objective towards the designs here, but I can see where people might want to cater to the 'judge'. Plus it adds yet another mystery facet to the derby, buwahaha!

The staff is probably thinking pretty hard about this though. I dont believe they would jeopardize the integrity of the derby if at all possible. This trial lets them, and us, be much more involved with the designs. :D

bassanimation wrote:I definitely see your point about keeping the guest editor a mystery. Im pretty good about being objective towards the designs here, but I can see where people might want to cater to the 'judge'. Plus it adds yet another mystery facet to the derby, buwahaha!

The staff is probably thinking pretty hard about this though. I dont believe they would jeopardize the integrity of the derby if at all possible. This trial lets them, and us, be much more involved with the designs. :D

Yeah, I can't imagine Woot would pick anyone who would actually be swayed.

kevlar51 wrote:Yeah, I can't imagine Woot would pick anyone who would actually be swayed.

Though I would laugh heartily if the derby is filled with cute rodents, hahahahaha! #nicetry

kevlar51 wrote:Maybe even a quick discussion on what worked well with the selected design?

That sounds like a great learning experience.

Echoing what I said elsewhere.

I think a lot of people are seeing this as a "monopoly breaker" that see about 70% of the prints going to about 10 artists.

And I think we're going to start seeing Editor's picking prints by those same 10 artists about 70% of the time.

I predict a Firestorm the first time Ramyb wins a 2nd or 3rd place.

Also, we need a name change, because they aren't 1st, 2nd, 3rd anymore. They're Peoples Choice, Editor's Choice, and Celeb Guest's Choice.

Logistics question here... How will print files be handled? Will '2nd' and '3rd' be informed in advance that Woot needs their print file? Will all 9 in the fog still need to submit? (Another reason for reducing the fog size)

For some artists, print files aren't a 30 minute process, but an hour or two, I bet. There's also the chance that an artist selected not in the fog might not be used to the proper procedure on these things. If someone picked fails to submit their print file, does it fall back to 2nd/3rd in votes?

kevlar51 wrote:Like others have already said, I think keeping the Guest Editor's Identity a secret until picks are done (for reasons I demonstrated above). But I definitely think it'll be cool to find out who's picking what when the dust settles. Maybe even a quick discussion on what worked well with the selected design?

i think it would be funny if it turned out that the first guest editor was in fact secret and someone other than bassanimation (she'd have to be in on it from the start, of course, but sworn to secrecy), which wouldn't be revealed until later. classic misdirection!

Just a heads up. The first week that they have a secret guest editor, it is me. I can not be bought, but I will provide my paypal account in a PM if anyone wants to try.

bluchez wrote:Just a heads up. The first week that they have a secret guest editor, it is me. I can not be bought, but I will provide my paypal account in a PM if anyone wants to try.

Awesome, but first let me see if I have mspaint on my computer.

no1 wrote:i think it would be funny if it turned out that the first guest editor was in fact secret and someone other than bassanimation (she'd have to be in on it from the start, of course, but sworn to secrecy), which wouldn't be revealed until later. classic misdirection!

Hahahaha! Or "Surprise! There is no third place!!! You all LOSE! Except of course for those other two guys ..."

Yeah, I would say that I'm waiting to pass judgement on this one. It's a good idea, since my half a year being here I've seen some great (and not so great) derby entries win. It's exciting to know that a shirt that got a few votes could still get made!
That being said, I find myself wondering what'll happen to the Reckoning. Yes, I know it won't be changed, yet the two longest running shirts on the Reckoning are not first placed shirts, and quite a few third place shirts are up there too. It'll be interesting if the Reckoning shirts get betteror worse shelf life.
Either way, this is an exciting time to be on Shirt Woot!

trekmiss wrote:A year ago I would have voted that I love it! Now I just don't care. Quality has slipped so much between printing issues and shirt blanks, that a derby change up doesn't even matter anymore. Fix these issues, and I'd be back on board with loving it!

QFT. That's the bottom line. I think the new Derby rules are great. I think the new rules encourage artists to enter -- to take their time and give it their best shot -- knowing the outcome isn't soly dictated by the ignorant voting hordes.

I think it's a shame these great designs will inevitably be sloppily printed in the wrong size on cheap, shoddy blanks.

There's something nostalgic about this development, though... I remember when the Derby was brand new, and there was only one winner... Sad to remember how Shirt.Woot worked hard to make a name for itself in the Internet T-Shirt business... always improving in print quality, always earning new loyal customers and attracting awesome artists... It's so depressing to see it all fall apart so rapidly...

Invisiblemoose wrote:... It's so depressing to see it all fall apart so rapidly...

Welcome to Life in the Amazon!

Maybe guest editors should be considered for the reckoning, as well.

Two guest editors could be added: one to choose a shirt out of the Top 20 to be reckoned, and a second to choose a shirt that WOULD have been reckoned, but is now saved! [maybe this could be the same person?!?]

This would allow an all-new side-sale (shirt-woot-plus) category: Reckoned Too Soon!

My thoughts? Your site, your rules. I like that first place is still popular vote. I also like that someone is looking at artistic merit for 2nd place. I have no doubt the third place will be a good choice, as if it isn't the shirt won't sell very well.