Shrine Spotlight Discussion

[Camy]

We've gotten some feedback about Shrine Spotlight's nominations and wanted to ask the community if others felt the same way.

• For those who have had more than one shrine of theirs is in the poll, does it feel like you're competing against yourself? How do you feel about it?
• How does everyone feel about this? Do you have any suggestions as to what we could change if this is an issue?

This is NOT to revamp the system, just modify it a little.

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Thank you everyone for giving input! :D

A soft cap of 2 shrines at max for a shrine maker to be nominated will be set in for next month and onward.

Plus, if any shrine maker who feels that they are not comfortable for their shrines to be put against each other, you are free to PM me to remove one of them before nominations close.

These additions will be added to the Shrine Spotlight system page as well as the nomination threads.

We have also set up an anonymous feedback form here as we realize that it might be a sensitive topic and not everyone wants to post their opinion on the forums. Feel free to use this form to let us know how you think!

[Todd]

Sometimes I feel like Person A may have the best shrine and deserve to win, but because he or she has another site listed, Person B wins because votes are divided between Person A's shrines (If one is good, both are usually good and get votes). This hasn't been a problem for me, though. I'm happy seeing anyone win, and I've noticed Person A's shrine that I felt should have won ended up winning a few months down the line anyway. I can see how this might be annoying to some people, however.

[Anise]

I don't usually pay close enough attention to how the votes are divided but personally I'm always happy to be nominated much less have people vote for my shrines. Many months though we have a lot of shrines in the voting. They may include multiple from the same person or they may not. I think with only having two votes I find the amount of shrines sometimes makes it difficult and having only one shrine per person may or may not resolve that issue. I do think that if a shrine is going to be the SOTM it will win sooner or later.

[Robin]

I could see this maybe being an issue in our larger participation months when there are a TON of shrines to choose from...but so far, it doesn't seem to have affected the overall "deserving shrine winning" dynamic, like Todd mentioned. (Now if there were three or more shrines nominated from the same network, that could get a little dicey, because then it's like having more raffle tickets for better chances of winning the prize, y'know?)

Perhaps if this does become a big issue or voting, we could limit it to, say, no more than two shrines by the same person in the running? Just throwing that out there.

[Jae]

Given the concept of shrine spotlight, I don't find seeing multiple shrines from one person in the poll to be an issue. Nominations are the members' way of acknowledging shrines that stand out to them on an individual level, and the poll determines the collective opinion.

But! I think this is a great opportunity to consider what a soft cap on the number of shrines by the same maker can do. (I say soft cap, as I'm not crazy about restricting someone's opinion of a great shrine for the category, just because there's already one nomination for the same maker.) By encouraging nominators to consider other makers after a popular maker for the round hits the soft cap, shrine spotlight can become more inclusive and expose members to a greater variety of networks.

Does this make sense? Am I wording things understandably? Bueller?

[Megan A]

As a shrine maker - I think that someone who has multiple shrines nominated can be at a disadvantage because, as Todd said, if one shrine is great and receives votes, the other is most likely going to receive some too. I personally would not want my shrines competing against each other, but I am thankful that people like my shrine enough to nominations either way so please don't take this as a negative thing!

As a voter - I think that the amount of nominated shrines can be overwhelming at times for the more popular categories, and I wonder if imposing a limit would fix this. Using the current month as an example, it would reduce the amount of nominations by a lot, but this may just be a special case. In any case, a soft cap like Jae discussed, could allow for different shriners to get their shrines noticed and bring more exposure to different networks if people nominate the same amount of shrines even with a cap.

[Mikari]

I personally don't mind seeing shrines from the same person in the poll because we're voting for the individual shrines, rather than for the author's collective. There are always going to be more than one shrine that I like regardless, it's still a matter of picking the one (or 2 or 3) that I like best in that round. I take a different approach to nominations and nominate shrines from different people, though that's just a personal choice and I don't mind if others nominate multiple shrines from the same author.

[Lethe]

Thanks for the input so far, everyone! :D

We have also set up an anonymous feedback form here as we realize that it might be a sensitive topic and not everyone wants to post their opinion on the forums. Feel free to use this form to let us know how you think!

[Lethe]

My own input, based on other voices I've heard:

On a personal level, I'm always honoured to see a shrine of mine nominated, and don't really mind votes on my own shrines being split if there's more than one in the poll.

However, while I understand that we're voting on shrines rather than members, I think that if a person has several shrines in the poll, voters would not allocate both their votes to shrines by the same person and instead spread them out - understandably so, to give credit to more than one shrine maker. And in that case, people with multiple shrines in the poll aren't at an advantage, but the opposite, since votes on their work would be split. As said, that doesn't bother me, but I can understand how it may bother others, especially since I know that winning a Shrine Spotlight award can be very motivating (and that doesn't imply that someone "takes Spotlight too seriously").

As an aside, while I don't see multiple shrines of a person in a poll as an issue in terms of "being at an advantage" (since I don't think it gives anyone an advantage), I think it'd be nice to promote and reflect the diverse shrining styles in the nominations (it is called "Spotlight" after all) by way of encouraging shrines by different people to be nominated.

I don't see a hassle-free way of implementing a hard limit of 1-2 shrines per person without making the nomination process unenjoyable (none of us would want to limit it to "first nomination sticks, nobody else can nominate a shrine by the same person"), but I'm in favour of Jae's suggested soft cap. :> Add a line in the Spotlight about promoting variety, set a soft cap of 1-2 shrines per person (depending on outcome of the dicsussion above), list any nominated shrines by the same maker next to each other for visibility? Something like that.

[Camy]

Thank you everyone for giving input! :D

A soft cap of 2 shrines at max for a shrine maker to be nominated will be set in for next month and onward.

Plus, if any shrine maker who feels that they are not comfortable for their shrines to be put against each other, you are free to PM me to remove one of them before nominations close.

These additions will be added to the Shrine Spotlight system page as well as the nomination threads.