Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

[David Artman <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Glad to see the interest sparking! Replies, in no particular order:

RE Rank tallying method: I defer to those who can get through the IRV or the Condorset process--if I end up running the contest, I will be seeking assistance (which will also provide a form of verification). But see below....

RE Brian Campbell running it: Cool by me; and it makes sense, given that you don't want to compete. Even more so, if you can figure out what to do for the tallying process (your access to scripts, for instance). Opening submissions for two weeks, starting the 27th, seems like plenty of time to disseminate the request for submissions between now and then and when you return from vacation (~Aug 10th?). For all intents and purposes, that makes for almost a month of promotion: a Good Thing!

RE Submission or voting by wiki: I proposed submission by e-mail to avoid the potential for removing someone else's submission (yeah, that would be nasty and unthinkable, but effective processes are designed to deal with worst case, not rely on best case). Obviously, such "revisionist" monkey business precludes voting by wiki, as does the need to keep votes hidden until all are submitted. Further, e-mailing submissions lets you have a nice "reveal" of the contestants, all at once, which might lead to more submissions (rather than, say, some folks not submitting because they see a serious contender is already in the contest or because they are shy about "announcing" it publicly via a wiki update).
   If you're concern, however, is with general dissemination of your e-mail, then why not setup a G-Mail account just for the contests, to which you (or future coordinators) alone have the password.

RE voting about the tallying method: Hehe... My vote is for "whatever method the guy doing the math wants to do, amongst methods designed to handle ranked votes fairly." (*DODGE!*) If you need a ranking method for tallying the vote about how to vote, then we've got too many methods in contention. Surely, if the math load is acceptable for all methods then there is ONE best method, no?

RE Theme: I recall this discussion from April, and there's two kinds of themes: mechanical and "flavor". IIRC, folks generally didn't bite at the "flavor" theme--which also would require even more lead time, so folks could design to it--so it looks like a theme, if adopted, should be mechanical. I, further, concur that "single Treehouse stash" should be the theme for this contest, as no previous contest had Treehouse as a product to leverage (I don't think--hazy on date of TH release relative to 2005). And not only would it help to promote the current product line (TH) but, as Christopher says, it's a minor investment for new players to join in on the testing and voting AND it makes for a bit more level playing field.
   All that said, however, I would also open the theme to THREEhouse: three stashes of TH pyramids (using both color sets or not). 3H as a theme, further, would automatically still include a single TH stash (such games need only one of the three stashes). Would that, however, break the "apples-to-apples comparison," I wonder?
   SO, in the spirit of waffling, I am good with no theme, one TH stash theme, or 3H theme. AND... here's another thing on which to vote. (Maybe Kristin or Andy could come in here and relieve us of infinite vote regress with a simple suggestion of what they and Looney Labs feel is best at this time, in terms of their own promotions and initiatives?)

Hope this helps;
David