r/vexillology • u/Vexy Exclamation Point • Jan 19 '23
Contest January Contest Voting Thread
New Voting Format!
We’re entering the 13th year of monthly /r/vexillology Flag Design Contests (wow!), and we’re excited to announce the first major update to the format. From now on, voting will not happen in a reddit voting thread, but rather on the vexillologycontests.com website. Here’s a link in big text you can click:
New Website for Voting!
Other than the new site for voting, note that starting this month you’ll be rating flags from 0-5 instead of simply upvoting the ones you like. Moving to a site we have more creative control over allows this, and we’re hoping the more granular format lends itself to a better experience. You may have some questions, we put an FAQ in the comments!
New Contest Sponsor, Flagmaker & Print!
We’re also delighted to announce that our contest officially has a sponsor now, Flagmaker & Print! This is a great website to design and print real flags that you can receive all over the world. This GIF explains the process They reached out to us quite a while ago about potentially partnering with the contest, and with our new website it’s the perfect time to officially partner with them. We do try to respect Reddit policies about ads within the subreddit, so you’ll see a banner ad on the contest site linking to Flagmaker & Print. The two things they’re specifically sponsoring in a 6 month trial are:
- Website hosting fees (which to date /u/heshammourad has been graciously covering out of pocket)
- A free printed flag as a prize for each month’s winner!
We offered a flag prize to the winning entry once many years ago, but the logistics proved difficult since our userbase is so international. Since Flagmaker & Print can ship anywhere in the world, we’re excited to be able to bring that prize back this year.
Contest Prompt Link
Prompt: Design a flag for an unlikely bilateral military alliance
In the first r/vexillology flag design contest of 2023, we’re asking you to get creative with geo-politics. Pick TWO countries that might seem to have little in the way of connection, and design the hypothetical flag that they might use if they forged a military alliance.
We approved 69 entries.
We’re really excited for this next stage in the /r/vexillology Flag Design Contest, and we’re excited for what’s to come. Thanks for being a great part of a wonderful community, and keep your eyes out for future updates!
Good luck and may the odds be in your favor!
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please contact the mods
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u/KR-VincentDN Jan 19 '23
Hey folks, very excited to be a part of this! Most will know me as a Youtuber or webseries author, and as founder of Flagmaker & Print, an app integrating a free flag designer with a printing service. The goal is to become 'The Vexillologist's Choice' and integrate the flag printing with worldbuilding, community contests and more. A partnership with the existing r/vexillology community was only natural, and I will be offering a free printed flag to the winner each month!
You can check out the story of FMP on our Youtube making of video, or by visiting the site. The full documentary is up at https://youtu.be/IM8xdfetmNk
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u/Vexy Exclamation Point Jan 19 '23
FAQ
Why the move?
We’ve used the same basic format that we use today since 2015, and it hasn’t changed all that much before that. Unfortunately, some of the tools we’re using are starting to show their age, and it’s become a bit of a complicated process that goes between Reddit, Imgur, and Google. Reddit’s contest mode has an increasing number of bugs, and the submission process has become cumbersome.
Fortunately, for the last few years, we’ve been excited to see the evolution of vexillologycontests.com, a website developed by /u/heshammourad on their own time to help make the process of viewing all entries more easily. They’ve graciously agreed to officially come aboard the team, and we’re moving some of the contest directly to that site! For this month, voting will take place on the contest website, there may be other upgrades in store for the future.
How do I vote?
- Go to the website, and click the person icon in the upper right.
- Each entry in this month’s contest will be in random order. For each entry you evaluate, drag the slider between 0 and 5.
- At the end of the voting window, scores will be ranked by average score.
That’s it! If you have any questions or run into any issues, please ask in the comments, there may be some kinks to iron out in the first month.
How will annual standings work?
Since we’re starting fresh in the new year, our plan is to make the annual score simply the sum of the average scores of flags submitted. The maximum points a user could achieve during a year is 5.0 times 24 flags (2 per month) = 120. A user who instead submits 1 flag a month and averages a 3.0 would score 36 on the year.
Can you see who I voted for?
Votes are tied to your account, and you can change your vote right up until the deadline (displayed on the site). What score you give each flag is confidential: it will display for you, and a small number of mods with admin access will be able to see who voted for what, but other than that we won’t publish your votes. As with past contests, the flag designers should stay anonymous until after voting ends, and voting is anonymous, too. Do try to vote fairly based on your honest vexillological opinion: mods reserve the right to throw out a user’s votes if they seem blatantly unfair.
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u/RottenAli Nottinghamshire Jan 20 '23
Interesting developments here well done everyone - I'll be back.
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u/Coliop-Kolchovo Liechtenstein Jan 24 '23
What is the maximum amount of point someone could reach in a single contest?
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u/VertigoOne Oct 20, Jul 22 Contest Winner Jan 24 '23
A single contest's score would be based on the average of the votes they got, so the theoretical highest they could get is 5 points, if every single vote they got rated them as a five.
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u/TuxKitten Indonesia / Central Java Jan 26 '23
By the way, when does voting close?
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u/bakonydraco River Gee County / Antarctica (Smith) Jan 26 '23
9 PM ET! There’s a countdown at the top of the website.
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u/Firelol_2 Trentino-Alto Adige Jan 24 '23
hey i would like to ask can i help someone to remaster my flag or should i create the falg myself?
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u/VertigoOne Oct 20, Jul 22 Contest Winner Jan 24 '23
You can work with other people to design a flag. We are at the voting stage for this contest, but please feel free to enter a design next month.
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u/heshammourad :SE22: Sep 22 Contest Winner Jan 19 '23
Hey, everyone! I'm also very excited for this new stage in the contest and to be able to provide a website experience that will hopefully make the contest more engaging and exciting for you. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or respond to this comment if you encounter any errors, or have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding the voting experience or any other aspects of the website.