Caption the Screenshot Competition Winners!

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gibbousmoon wrote:

1. People are complaining about character limit rules being broken in winning entries.

Bex mentioned 300 for "screenshot" and "18 screenshots". There were no clear definitions on whether the 300 number was per entry or per screenshot, and the context uses 300 for the singular of "screenshot".

300 characters or less at 18 screen caps is a total of 5,400 characters. None of the winning entries went over that. In mine, Bohemian Rhapsody, I used all 18 screen caps, and the lyrics are around 1,500 characters total, less than half of the max possible.

So what are you trying to say? No rules were broken by the winners.

EDIT: I just counted one screen of t1no's entry and the last pane, which is long, is still within the 300 limit. 268 characters including punctuation. That person kept roughly within the limit per screenshot. However, they repeated one screen cap several times. Still, that's nitpicking.

"The winners will be selected based on entertainment value although writing skills will definitely be advantageous!"

More like "writing skills will be ignored!"

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sauldosanjos wrote:

"The winners will be selected based on entertainment value although writing skills will definitely be advantageous!"

More like "writing skills will be ignored!"

Bex didn't say writing skills will help determine the winning entries. All Bex said was that writing skills will be helpful. For example, if someone writes a short story with near-perfect writing skills, but that story is not entertaining at all, it's probably not going to win.

That much should be common sense.

well there some are good 2 are 3 but the other is BULLSHIT... i had fun doing it but when i see some shit winning it pissing me off i mean if they dont want something just say it you ********* ...it just stupid...

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cipher_nemo wrote:

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gibbousmoon wrote:

1. People are complaining about character limit rules being broken in winning entries.

Bex mentioned 300 for "screenshot" and "18 screenshots". There were no clear definitions on whether the 300 number was per entry or per screenshot, and the context uses 300 for the singular of "screenshot".

300 characters or less at 18 screen caps is a total of 5,400 characters. None of the winning entries went over that. In mine, Bohemian Rhapsody, I used all 18 screen caps, and the lyrics are around 1,500 characters total, less than half of the max possible.

So what are you trying to say? No rules were broken by the winners.

EDIT: I just counted one screen of t1no's entry and the last pane, which is long, is still within the 300 limit. 268 characters including punctuation. That person kept roughly within the limit per screenshot. However, they repeated one screen cap several times. Still, that's nitpicking.

"We're providing 18 screenshots for you to work with. These can be found in the post below this one. It's then up to you to succinctly caption the screenshot in 300 characters or less. This can be anything you think of! Lore, fan-fiction, hilarity or anything else."

If we look at this paragraph the most reasonable way to understand it is that there is a 300 character restriction. Period.

"You're also welcome to edit the images. For example, you could add speech bubbles to make your commentary clearer. The main restriction is that the image must still be recognisable after editing. If you'd like to cut it up and make it into a multi-paneled comic, that's fine too."

You are right to say that one could understand the first paragraph in conjuntion with this one in a way, that you can use mutliple panels and thus exceed the character limit. It's far from the most intuitive way to understand it, though. Besides: "... make IT into a multi-paneled comic", not "them" or "several". "It" obviously referring to the image/screenshot (singular). I think for example pendabe abided by this rule with his submission. You, for example didn't. I see gibsauce's entry to be reasonably included since it doesn't go over 300 characters though.

Another thing that irks me: "This time around we wanted to hold a competition that is more inclusive for our broader community." Because surprise, surprise, every one of the winning images is heavily edited. How is that inclusive of a broader community? Interestingly enough, none of the winners had their writing beneath the images, which basically seemed to be what was expected, the actual editing being an optional way of doing it. You could argue that the others simply weren't as good as the ones that were selected. It rather looks like the most flash won out, though.

At the very least the rules were unclear, ambivalent and open to interpretation. Since it's my belief that the most intuitive way to understand them is that there is a hard 300 character limit that is not to be exceeded and that a lot of people share this opinion, I would say that this competition was very poorly executed.
And I don't think it's nitpicking. You want to make a contest? Make your rules clearer.
To say that people simply are bitter for not winning is not only insulting but entirely misses the point of the very reasonable criticism.

Last but not least: I think the winner selection is not really in the spirit of a "caption the screenshot" competition. But that is a matter of personal opinion. To have clear rules in a competition isn't.

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cipher_nemo wrote:

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sauldosanjos wrote:

"The winners will be selected based on entertainment value although writing skills will definitely be advantageous!"

More like "writing skills will be ignored!"

Bex didn't say writing skills will help determine the winning entries. All Bex said was that writing skills will be helpful. For example, if someone writes a short story with near-perfect writing skills, but that story is not entertaining at all, it's probably not going to win.

That much should be common sense.

I've never said it would determine the winning, stop trying to justify everything just because you won.

Advantageous =/= meaningless

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sauldosanjos wrote:

I've never said it would determine the winning, stop trying to justify everything just because you won.

Advantageous =/= meaningless

I was just happy to make my entries. I had another entry as well. Even if I didn't win, I'd still be happy for those who did. It was a contest for fun, not for life and death to be analyzed by the community to such a detailed level of picking apart the wording of the rules.

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HammurabiJones wrote:

If we had a story-telling contest, would people complain that winning entries were submitted by those who used something like Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher, or some other desktop publishing software?

How far do we have to beat a dead horse?

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lotting2782 wrote:

well there some are good 2 are 3 but the other is BULLSHIT

Let those who won enjoy their moment, even if you or I didn't like a specific winning entry. Others obviously enjoyed it.