The problem with voting for your own entries is this - if most entrants vote for themselves, but one or two don't because they consider it inappropriate to do so, then that is an unfair disadvantage for those who don't vote for themselves. Not only do they get one less vote (their own), but one of the other entrants (possibly one for did vote for their own entry) gets an extra vote, so it means a two-vote difference in the end! So basically, by being noble and proper, you're hurting your chances of winning substantially.
This issue is a big problem when you have as few voters total as we do; entrants often win with 5 votes to 4 (or similar), so a two-vote difference can obviously change the whole result. If every entrant votes for their own entry, then that has the same effect in the end as not having the entrants vote at all (i.e. it doesn't change the result - since every single entry gets one extra vote it won't change who has won).
Really, the only way to have relevant and fair votes from entrants, is to say that they can vote in categories they've entered but that they cannot vote for their own entry! With that method, you'd expect the really good entries would get votes from many other entrants, so
as a whole the entrants are having a fair say about who they think should win.
The obvious problem with that is, if you are entrant A, and you think entrant B is your most serious competition, then while you probably should vote for entrant B (since you clearly think it is a good entry) you would be best NOT voting for entrant B - to increase your own chances of winning.
Which is why, to avoid these myriad problems, we haven't allowed entrants to vote in categories they have entered. There is just no benefit to doing so, that I can see. When we're asking who has the best entry, we're really asking only those who don't have a vested interest in the result, to ensure that every voter is making their choice based solely on their opinion of the quality of the entries, and for no other reason.
I am not completely adverse to the idea of second-place winners, but a couple of things trouble me when it comes to second-place prizes.
Firstly, I don't think we can ask the BCA council and community for any more prize donations per competition - we usually only just manage to get six together, and eight would be a lot harder. I suppose, though, if half of them are "second-place" prizes, then smaller and less-expensive items can be donated for those, so it might work out.
Of course, if we can rustle up some sponsors then everything changes. We've got to nail down exactly what we are offering potential sponsors and what we expect in return. Something along the lines of "one 630x100 banner, above the entries for a category, in return for 1 first prize (min value $30) and 1 second prize (min value $20)" (but we'll figure out exactly what in the
Sponsors thread).
The other problem that I foresee with second-place prizes, is that more often than not, we have two or three second-place winners. Not a problem if you're just announcing who has won second place ("Tied for second place: entrants A and B") but it is a problem when it comes to prizes - who gets it?
And when I say, more often than not, I mean it - I would guesstimate that 3 out of every 5 categories (categories that have more than two entrants, I should say) end up with more than one entrant tied for second place. This is to be expected when our total number of votes received is nearly always less than twenty.
I don't have a problem at all with second-place winners on their own (i.e. no prizes) and if it is agreed that the second-place winners should be announced as part of the winners announcement, then I can do it from this round onwards. That can easily be done while we discuss the idea of awarding prizes to them.
It is clear that many of you support the idea of second-place prizes, so we ought to see if we can overcome the problems and get them happening.
Now while it may say that GB is a sponsor on the BCA page, that is actually a hold-over from the old days. If you put your site on GB, and you provide a return link (banner) to GB on your page, then you get upgraded to "Partner" status for free. So we did that, but then discovered that WOSW removed from our banner the code that GB required to be there.
So I removed the banner but kept the text link in the hope that it would be enough to maintain our "Partner" status on GB (and it has) and I kept the "Sponsor" descriptor for two reasons, one, I could not remember how to spell "affiliate", and two, since we are getting something (upgrade to Partner status) from them, a sponsor is technically what they are, even though we're not getting prizes from them.
DaveandCate were trying to talk to GB about a prize donation sponsorship, and the last thing I heard from them before they left was, they hadn't had any reply from GB about the request (after waiting for a while). But I'd be more than happy if we can talk to them about the prize donation thing again!
I am not so sure that there is causation in the correlation between "one win per entrant" and a drop in entries. It is true that multiple entrants are entering less categories per round than before, but it is also true that we've seen less of the irregular and one-off entrants, so I suspect something else is to blame.
The competitions since we've enacted the "one win per entrant" rule are also the ones that I have started late, and they're the ones that have suffered in terms of promotion thanks to WOSW removing everyone's contact list (don't forget - we run
our own contact list now).
Maybe it is those two latter reasons that are primarily responsible for the drop in entries. Maybe everyone has BCA-fatigue. Maybe the "one win" rule has also scared off one-off and irregular entrants. I don't know, but I do think that the original reasons that caused us to enact that rule are still valid, and I think we should investigate this fully before deciding on a rule change. The voting results from previous rounds can be provided if need be so that people can see what effect different rule changes would have had on who won, etc.
I am fully prepared to change this rule if there is an obvious desire for it to be changed, so long as everyone is aware of how that will (or will likely) affect the competition.
Thanks everyone - DJ, DF and DV - for the great ideas and for speaking up to improve the BCAs. It will be interesting to see what others think of these issues.
If you have proposed an idea and it has been discussed, and you feel that there is support for your idea, don't hesitate to ask that it be put to a council vote.