Posted: 4/6/2010 3:53 AM
Post subject: 2010 Donations/Award Prize Pool
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adelikat
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I apologize for how late in the year this post has come. I want to pledge that a percentage of donations this year will go to the award prize pool for the upcoming year. I was thinking 10% but it is hard to predict. Awards had prize money this year, did that go well? Should we keep doing it?. Thoughts.
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Posted: 4/6/2010 4:24 AM
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sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
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Should this be over in the awards forum? What's the purpose in award funds? If it is to motivate people to seek awards, perhaps we should consider whether it is serving as that motivating factor. I am not much of a TASer myself but I personally would not see it as a strong motivation (if it is a motivation at all).
Posted: 4/6/2010 5:00 AM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I don't think award money will ever be a significant motivating factor. It could be a way to give something tangible back to the people who make the biggest contributions to the community, though. It's a nice gesture, in other words, and so long as it isn't significantly impacting the site's solvency (and I'm sure Adelikat will make certain it doesn't), I don't have a problem with it.
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Posted: 4/6/2010 3:16 PM
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Canar
Joined: 4/1/2010
Posts: 96
I would be interested in donating money specifically towards an award for SMS/GG TASes. The system is close to my heart and I'd like to see more done with it.
Posted: 4/6/2010 3:41 PM
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Warp
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
I bet that many/most people would end up donating their award money to the site anyways, so having award money from the website funds seems a bit pointless...(but I have no idea how many people would really do that.)
Posted: 4/6/2010 3:47 PM
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DarkKobold
Skilled player (1652)
Joined: 11/15/2004
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I personally didn't like the monetary awards being given for prizes. The new little trophies in our posts should be enough incentive. Additionally, a person donating money may be offended that their donation is going to prizes for TASers, when the donation was intended to help keep one of their favorite sites online. Money left over from server costs would be better kept in an account for years when donations may fall short of paying for the site to stay online. If there is a serious influx of cash, perhaps renting more server power? April Fools showed that, even with all the optimizations, the site can be dragged to a halt.
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Posted: 4/6/2010 4:04 PM
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Dromiceius
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Apropos of what DarkKobold said, I think we should try to implement that bounty idea where the bounties pay toward the site instead of the runners*. The idea of the site getting an upgrade from doing a TAS people wanted to see is surely more appealing than getting some tiny amount of money for oneself. * Edit: that is, if we're going to do anything that involves money changing hands. It might be better not to do anything of the sort.
Posted: 4/6/2010 4:12 PM
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Canar
Joined: 4/1/2010
Posts: 96
I'm just idly speculating, mostly. I've made the choice to financially support TASVideos.org to some degree, and so I will continue to do so. I'm just trying to think of creative ways to use that money. :)
Posted: 4/6/2010 5:10 PM
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mmbossman
Experienced player (829)
Joined: 11/18/2006
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DarkKobold wrote:
I personally didn't like the monetary awards being given for prizes. The new little trophies in our posts should be enough incentive.
^This. The small amounts of money that exchange hands for the smaller prizes would seem to be nothing but a hassle for me. If there's really a lot of money left over, upgrade the server or something. If there absolutely has to be monetary gain to go along with the awards, I'd suggest just limiting it to TAS of the year and TASer of the year.
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Posted: 4/6/2010 7:05 PM
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Warepire
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I think that the award image in the signature is reward enough. Sure, I have not made a single TAS yet but I plan at attempting some as soon as school gets less hectic. Save the money for future server fees or use it to improve the site or server somehow instead.
Posted: 4/7/2010 2:43 AM
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Mitjitsu
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Posts: 2997
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mmbossman wrote:
If there absolutely has to be monetary gain to go along with the awards, I'd suggest just limiting it to TAS of the year and TASer of the year.
^This At least that way the monetry awards are more likely to have significance In relations to bountys, unless it's a fairy small project like something which could be done within the space of a couple of weeks then money incentives are unlikely to provide much motivation. Even if you offered me $1k to do a 100% TAS of Majora's Mask I still wouldn't do given that if would eat up all my free time over the space of a year.
Posted: 4/8/2010 12:42 AM
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Limne
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Joined: 2/24/2010
Posts: 153
In relations to bountys, unless it's a fairy small project like something which could be done within the space of a couple of weeks then money incentives are unlikely to provide much motivation. Even if you offered me $1k to do a 100% TAS of Majora's Mask I still wouldn't do given that if would eat up all my free time over the space of a year.
The idea for having bounties that donate to the site is a bit different in its intent; namely, to encourage lurkers to pledge their support in a way that provides dedicatory significance for specific content they feel strongly about. That it might provide a TASer with a sense for what runs are in high demand or would especially benefit the site would be a possible bonus (even if unlikely). It occurs to me though that allowing donators to sponsor published runs might be a better way to go (No having to wait around for money to be cashable or worrying about whether a sponsored run would be publishable in the first place.)
Posted: 4/8/2010 1:04 PM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Limne wrote:
It occurs to me though that allowing donators to sponsor published runs might be a better way to go (No having to wait around for money to be cashable or worrying about whether a sponsored run would be publishable in the first place.)
That's a surprisingly good idea, personally. All we have to hope for is that someone doesn't keep sponsoring Rolling Thunder to force it onto the front page.
Posted: 4/8/2010 1:25 PM
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BadPotato
Joined: 1/26/2009
Posts: 558
Location: Canada - Québec
Does the bounty system is the best way to motivate coder for better emulator: mupen64+, pcsx-rr(r?), bsnes, etc... ?
Posted: 4/8/2010 4:00 PM
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mz
Emulator Coder, Player (79)
Joined: 10/26/2007
Posts: 693
You can use Rent A Coder for that: http://www.rentacoder.com/.
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Posted: 4/8/2010 4:21 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I will freely admit I haven't used Rent a Coder, but it seems like there would be few, if any, programmers in its system with the skills needed to advance emulator functionality and accuracy. You might be able to get some value from it in the way of UI improvements, but that's unimportant compared to having an accurate, syncing emulator.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 4/13/2010 10:56 PM
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FreshFeeling
Joined: 8/13/2005
Posts: 356
Location: Canada
When I donated, I donated specifically for awards... but that was partly because I knew the awards were already happening and I wanted to add to the significance of it. Then the little award icons came along. I like the awards a lot but I don't particularly care if there's a prize. I wouldn't have donated if I didn't love the site, so if it's used for something else I'm good with that.
Posted: 8/9/2010 10:01 PM
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adelikat
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Ok, I would say that the awards prize pool idea was a flop. Most authors donated it back to the site anyway, it felt weird trying to deal with the money, and most people in this thread don't seem to inspired by the idea. So this year we won't do it. The icons and the general appreciation from the audience are far more effective motivators anyway.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects