Community Event Hosting Guidelines

Community Event Hosting Guidelines

A good contest requires thoughtful planning, attention to detail, clear rules and expectations, and a set timeline. In other words, a good contest needs a prepared host.

All contests posted on SMWC's Community Events forum require a designated host. While we don't want to limit the scope or creativity of the type of contests held, we do want to help ensure that contest planners have an idea of what works, and a set of guidelines to help direct them.

Note that, while these are not rules, we do view these guidelines as elements of a well-run contest.

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Planning a Contest


What Kind of Contest Do You Want?

It seems a bit obvious, but the first thing you need to determine is what you want people to submit. If it's a level, what type of level do you want people to make? If it's resources, what type of resources do you want people to make?

This feels simple, but it's very important to establish because it will set the tone for everything else. If you can't easily explain what it is people should make for the contest, then it is likely that any potential entrants will also be confused. On the other hand, a clearly defined contest will have more focused, better, and more confident entries.


Begin Assembling the Rules

Once you have your contest and your theme defined, the next step is to start structuring the full rules. As a contest host, we require all contests posted on the site to have a defined rules post.

A rules post is the Constitution of the contest: it's not just the rules for judging, but the breakdown of scoring, judging, format, etc. Essentially, every question an entrant could have about the contest would be answered by this post.

There isn't a strict template for what a contest's rules should be, but they should contain the following:

• Things entrants are allowed to do
• Things entrants are not allowed to do
• How to submit entries
• How entries will be judged
• Judges, if needed
• Point structure, if one is needed
• User voting parameters, if needed
• Prizes and Awards, if desired
• Submission Deadline

If you've never written a contest rules post before, don't be afraid to use pre-existing ones to get started. The wording doesn't need to be exact, but get the major building blocks in place: Entry rules, submission process, and evaluation/judging process are all crucial elements to any contest.


Using Judges? Recruit Judges

In my personal opinion, this is the most important part of the planning process.

Judging a contest is thankless work, by and large. For some contests, like kaizo design contests or uncapped difficulty contests, it can be both thankless and actively unfun. Be sure you communicate clearly with potential judges if you think this will be an issue.

Here are a few factors to keep in mind:

• The diversity of judges is crucial. Different skill levels, playing setups, design perspectives, and community experiences all add valuable insights to the overall judging pool.
• If your judge intends to stream their evaluations, that's entirely their choice. More on this later, but know that streaming does not make judging easier.
• Always recruit at least one backup. Your contest will always lose in a priority battle if a judge has an emergency, and it's important to prepare so that one judge's need to step away does not bottleneck the entire process.

Doing a Public Vote? Determine the process

A public vote can either be an alternative or a supplement to a scored, judged evaluation process, and we do not care whether your contest is judged by judges or by the public. However, know what you're getting into if you do a public vote, and prepare accordingly:

• Set a very specific place, time, and format for public voting. People should know that they are officially voting when they do so, and there should be no doubt that a person's vote is cast.
• Make sure all the entrants are presented in an unbiased way. Since engaging with the entries isn't a requirement to vote in a contest, this ensures that, at the least, voters have the choice to view the entries in full before making their choice.
• How comfortable are you with vote manipulation? Do you care if people vote multiple times, or if you get brigaded? If not, then be aware that your contest will likely be seen much less favorably by entrants. If you do care about preventing vote manipulation, then it is on you to find your preferred method of either validating votes or preventing multiple votes.

Lock the Rules

Once your judges, if any, are secured, take your rough draft of a rules post and share it with them. While you wrote and constructed the bulk of it yourself, your judges should come together to help fine-tune and confirm the final phrasing.

This is important for two reasons:

• It gives the judges buy-in into the contest beyond just their role as judge. Odds are they won't have anything to do once you confirm them until the submission period ends, so this is a chance to engage them and keep them interested in things up to the point the contest opens.
• It locks the rules and scoring rubric into the minds of the judges because they helped write them. Not only does this help avoid confusion and argument in the future, but it also ensures that the judges are all in agreement and have discussed everything relevant to the upcoming meta.

Once this is done, cross-check spelling and grammar, make sure you're cool with everything, and launch the contest.

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Submissions, Judging, and Evaluation


During the actual submission period, there likely won't be much for you to do, other than keep an eye on the contest chatter and be present to answer any questions or issues that arise.

If your contest is strictly user voting to determine results, then all you have to do now is add the entries into the user voting system, open the system, and wait for the period to end.


Getting Entries to the Judges

If you are using judges, it's your responsibility as host to get the entries to your judges. However you choose to deliver the entries to judges is up to you, as long as you do it fairly.



The Judging Process

In many situations, the judging period is more stressful than work for a host. You should be present to help, but you aren't judging, so let your judges do their work.

Here are a few tips for navigating this process:

• You are still in control of the contest. If a judge is going off the rails, you have the right to direct them back on track. This may not be pretty, but your responsibility is to make sure the contest is done well first and foremost.
• Streamers that judge have an extra burden, one that you are likely going to notice if it weighs on their judgment. Don't be afraid to offer them advice on making their judging easier or better, and at the end of the day, you can remind them that they don't have to judge on stream.
• Don't rush this part. It's tempting to try and get this part over with to get to the fun stuff, but the longer the judges actively work and honestly deliberate, the better the results will be. Let the chefs cook.
• At the same time, if the judges are just sitting around procrastinating, don't hesitate to remind them that people are waiting for this.
• You may be called upon to resolve conflicts or philosophical disagreements between judges. If you don't feel comfortable making these types of calls particularly in the realm of design choices, then don't hesitate to say so, but have a plan for what you would do if asked.
• Strongly encourage your judges to write their feedback. This is often the only chance creators will get honest, written critical feedback on something they make, and you owe it to them to fully utilize that opportunity.

Scoring

When judging is complete, it's up to you to determine how judges give you their scores and comments. Once you have done that, and tallied the scores together, it is a wise idea to show the judges first so they can ensure accuracy and sign off on the final numbers.

Some things to consider:

• While contests are ultimately the result of averaged numbers, a judge is never fully aware of the overarching meta when they put their scores down. Unless you micromanage each judge's scoring, odds are that the individuals will have very different approaches to how they use a scoring range. For example, judges may use different numerals to represent a letter grade (60 vs 75 for a C), and a 15-point swing may impact the ranking of a level much more than a judge intended. Allowing judges to view the full context of the scores and then adjust their scoring meta, gives those discrepancies a chance to iron themselves out.
• A judge may be willing to adjust their individual score if means ranking a level where they feel it belongs. Let them.
• One judge having a wildly different opinion about an entry is not a problem. However, they won't know their opinion is different until they see the full scoring context. Don't suggest they change their mind - judges should have their honest opinions reflected. They should also be ready for the inevitable response from creators upon the release of scores.

When your judges are satisfied with the final scores, publish away, and congratulations abound because the contest is over!

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Again, these are guidelines for contest hosting, but they are based on the staff's collective experience of running contests since SMW Central's founding. If you have any questions about hosting your contest in this forum, please reach out to one of the moderators of this forum (listed under the "Moderated by:" section on the Forum Index).

We would also like to acknowledge Emral, who wrote a very thorough set of hosting guidelines on the SMBX forum which helped inspire the structure and content of these guidelines.

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I'm not a doctor.