Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 3: The Annoyance of Overextended Challenge Rounds and How to Stop It
Over the past few months, I've been increasingly frustrated by unnecessarily lengthened duration of certain rounds in Automation's most prestigious and successful community challenge, The Car Shopping Round. Originally, its premise was for all entrants to submit a vehicle that met all the requirements of the current round, with the host's preferences further determining their design choices. Submissions would only be accepted within the first 10 days of the rules being announced, with each car being reviewed and ranked over the following week or so. Eventually, the winner of the current round would host the next round, unless he or she declined to do so, in which case the runner-up would take the reins of the contest; if that user also declined the offer, hosting duties would be passed on to the third-placed entrant, and so on.
This should have ensured that each round of the contest ran entirely according to schedule. Indeed, that's exactly what happened for the first 16 rounds of this contest. The next round, however, would see the reviews take longer to complete, although considering the deeper backstory for that round, everyone (including myself) considered it justified. For the next two rounds, this state of affairs persisted without too many complaints. However, in the 20th round, the host was unable to fulfill his duty of reviewing the cars due to work commitments, and so the community was forced to vote for a winner.
Like my fellow Automationeers, I was hoping that it would not happen again. Sadly, I was wrong - and so was the community. We were forced into an identical situation a few rounds later, but this time we had to act: the pace of the contest was significantly accelerated, with the submission period being shortened to one week, while the reviews and rankings would be delivered in three days at most. Obviously, this meant that any and all future round hosts, me included, would have to change their plans for reviewing entrants' cars.
Anyone who had not reviewed the cars as soon as they received them during their tenure as round master (at least, not in a long time) was effectively urged to do so whenever they had the chance; fortunately for me, when I hosted CSR26, I had this plan in mind from the outset. Yes, it was a tall order, especially when 30-odd users decide to enter a round, but it was manageable. And so, for the next few rounds, there were no instances of the reviews and results being overdue.
However, in the most recent round, this problem reared its head yet again. There was a different cause for this, though: the scope for the 31st round of this contest was much greater than in most of the previous rounds, and it turned out to be a step too far for the round host. To be fair, his plans were much more ambitious than they should have been; in my opinion, the premise for that round should have been moved to a separate challenge. But he went ahead with the plan anyway, and the reviews for each car ended up being so overdue that the announcement of the results had to be rushed just to avoid more voting on the users' behalf. Even then, the write-up of the results was not as detailed as it should have been.
Incredibly, the confusion didn't stop there: after the farcical conclusion of CSR31, most the users who did best in that round all declined offers to host the next round. Thus, for the first time in the challenge's history, the Automation community is in danger of being forced to go to a poll just to determine the next host. In fact, as of this writing, we have actually reached that state - but at least there will be some sense of normalcy again, with a new host being chosen, and a renewed promise to maintain the integrity of the contest. And, having recognized the fact that I needed to take a break just to allow my mind to recover from the chaos surrounding the previous round, I skipped CSR32 voluntarily, which was just as well; the post-markup maximum price was so low that I would have struggled to build a competitive entry considering the high minimum fuel economy requirement.
Hopefully, the next round should see a return to the brisk pace characteristic of this contest. That said, it is highly recommended that, in addition to planning ahead for the round you are about to host, you should review every vehicle that was submitted to you as soon as possible. This not only leaves you free to edit the reviews after the deadline, but allows you to determine a finishing order sooner. Happy hosting!
This should have ensured that each round of the contest ran entirely according to schedule. Indeed, that's exactly what happened for the first 16 rounds of this contest. The next round, however, would see the reviews take longer to complete, although considering the deeper backstory for that round, everyone (including myself) considered it justified. For the next two rounds, this state of affairs persisted without too many complaints. However, in the 20th round, the host was unable to fulfill his duty of reviewing the cars due to work commitments, and so the community was forced to vote for a winner.
Like my fellow Automationeers, I was hoping that it would not happen again. Sadly, I was wrong - and so was the community. We were forced into an identical situation a few rounds later, but this time we had to act: the pace of the contest was significantly accelerated, with the submission period being shortened to one week, while the reviews and rankings would be delivered in three days at most. Obviously, this meant that any and all future round hosts, me included, would have to change their plans for reviewing entrants' cars.
Anyone who had not reviewed the cars as soon as they received them during their tenure as round master (at least, not in a long time) was effectively urged to do so whenever they had the chance; fortunately for me, when I hosted CSR26, I had this plan in mind from the outset. Yes, it was a tall order, especially when 30-odd users decide to enter a round, but it was manageable. And so, for the next few rounds, there were no instances of the reviews and results being overdue.
However, in the most recent round, this problem reared its head yet again. There was a different cause for this, though: the scope for the 31st round of this contest was much greater than in most of the previous rounds, and it turned out to be a step too far for the round host. To be fair, his plans were much more ambitious than they should have been; in my opinion, the premise for that round should have been moved to a separate challenge. But he went ahead with the plan anyway, and the reviews for each car ended up being so overdue that the announcement of the results had to be rushed just to avoid more voting on the users' behalf. Even then, the write-up of the results was not as detailed as it should have been.
Incredibly, the confusion didn't stop there: after the farcical conclusion of CSR31, most the users who did best in that round all declined offers to host the next round. Thus, for the first time in the challenge's history, the Automation community is in danger of being forced to go to a poll just to determine the next host. In fact, as of this writing, we have actually reached that state - but at least there will be some sense of normalcy again, with a new host being chosen, and a renewed promise to maintain the integrity of the contest. And, having recognized the fact that I needed to take a break just to allow my mind to recover from the chaos surrounding the previous round, I skipped CSR32 voluntarily, which was just as well; the post-markup maximum price was so low that I would have struggled to build a competitive entry considering the high minimum fuel economy requirement.
Hopefully, the next round should see a return to the brisk pace characteristic of this contest. That said, it is highly recommended that, in addition to planning ahead for the round you are about to host, you should review every vehicle that was submitted to you as soon as possible. This not only leaves you free to edit the reviews after the deadline, but allows you to determine a finishing order sooner. Happy hosting!
No comments:
Post a Comment